



The Unofficial Guide for RICOH THETA is a free and open collection of resources for users of the low-cost 360 degree camera. It has built up over the past 9 months in the spirit of exploration and mutual support. No one really knows where 360 imagery will go or if VR will become mainstream. But it's an exciting time for developers and gadgetheads to experiment. Low-cost devices like the RICOH THETA allow an easy entry point into 360 degree content and VR.



The RICOH THETA comes with an open source API based on Google's Open Spherical Camera (OSC) API. This means the camera can be accessed and manipulated remotely. Many companies and individual developers are building applications and services utilizing 360 images and video in a wide range of areas from entertainment, security, real estate and construction, car sales, travel and more.



GitHub repos are especially useful. You fork it, change it some - or none - and you've got working code. It can be incredibly useful for getting started.



The Top 6 GitHub repos for RICOH THETA are listed on the main page of the main THETA Developers Unofficial Community page on GitHub. Here's a quick overview:



THETA-S-LiveViewer-P5

A great open source example of live streaming 360 degree video with the RICOH THETA S. Though live streaming stretches the camera's specs and is ultimately too low resolution for most apps, you'll probably want to scratch your live streaming itch first.



javascript-api-samples

Many developers think in JavaScript first. These two API samples utilizing JavaScript and Node.js will get you up and running fast.



theta-s-api-tests

This repo shows three examples of controlling the camera in Python. pyTHETA, from the Python command line; deskTHETA, a desktop example using the Pygame library; and a second Python desktop example using the Kivy library.



THETA_GL

WebGL is a popular JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D computer graphics and 2D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. Translated from Japanese, this repo is a WebGL viewer for RICOH THETA utilizing three.js.



ThetaWifiStreaming

This repo very nicely gets around a limitation of the camera - no live streaming over wifi, just over a USB connection - by utilizing Unity game development platform and its Sphere100 material.



ESP8266-THETA-S-SimpleRemoteControler

This repo help you build your first real gadget. It takes advantage of the ulta-cheap Switch Science ESP-WROOM-02 dev board and creates a single button remote control app.



These Top 6 repos should give you the foundation for starting off building 360 degree content quickly. For a broader look at what's available, Here's a more comprehensive list of RICOH THETA focused repos on GitHub.