Over the past wee while, immersive actioncam company Insta360 has been incubating a new camera-drone startup called Antigravity. Now the first flyer has been unveiled, a folding aerial adventurer capable of grabbing immersive 8K 360-degree footage.
"We didn't want to just build another drone," said BC Nie, Head of Marketing at Antigravity. "We wanted to create an entirely new way to fly. A1 is the first step in reimagining flight as something anyone can enjoy – something that is safe, intuitive, expressive, and endlessly creative."
The press materials don't go into too much detail, but the A1 works with a wireless hand controller and Vision goggles. The pistol-grip trigger remote offers an intuitive point-to-fly user experience, and features a bunch of buttons, rockers and switches plus a knurled wheel for control. There are three flight modes marked C, N and S – which could translate to a smooth cinematic mode, another for "normal" and one that unlocks the drone's sporty nature.
If you don't mind looking a bit like Marvel's Falcon or perhaps one of the insect-inspired characters, the Vision goggles will afford pilots an all-around immersive view of the drone's flight. Antigravity says that its FreeMotion tech works with head tracking to allow the wearer to "look freely in any direction while flying the drone using intuitive hand gestures."
This means that the pilot could essentially look left, right, up and down as the drone moves through the air, and if seeing is believing then that should make it feel like you're actually on board the mini flyer.
The left eye cover on the goggles is actually a small screen so anyone gawping at you will be able to see something of what you're experiencing. The right eye is blocked out, there are funky antennas left and right, and the headset appears to be powered by an external battery hanging from a lanyard.
The A1's dual-lens camera system – similar to Insta360's X Series actioncams – makes the live video feeds and 360-degree possible, with one fish-eye lens to the top of the fuselage and another below. There are also a couple of front-facing lenses, though their function hasn't been revealed at this time.
Antigravity is promising complete all-around image capture without blind spots, and you won't even see the drone through the goggles or in the captured 8K footage thanks to slick image stitching. And of course, this kind of capture not only offers the potential to watch the same footage over and over again from different perspectives but also gives numerous creativity options in post production.
It also caters for the export of multiple angles from a single clip without loss of quality, and "enables powerful new editing possibilities like dynamic camera moves, Tiny Planet effects, and horizon flips."
Other than its 249-g (8.8-oz) weight, plus safety features including a return-to-home feature and a payload detection system to prevent unauthorized mods, that's about all we can tell you about the A1 for the moment. Full specs will be revealed ahead of launch proper, with the startup confirming that the A1 is expected to be available no later than January next year. Pricing has yet to be revealed.
While final tweaking and testing are undertaken, Antigravity is also embarking on a consultation exercise with creators and segment experts to "help shape the future of Antigravity products." The company will pick from a pool of applicants for the program, who will receive a pre-production A1. The best ideas coming from that will be rewarded by a share of a US$20,000 prize pot.
You can get a taste for what's on offer in the video below.
Source: Antigravity
