Arqball’s game-changing photography tools

Do you ever stop and look around and ask yourself, how would the world change if there was no Internet? Sure you’d probably spend a lot less time looking at cat videos, but what about the big stuff? What about the game-changing innovations that have helped shape the economy, accessibility and the ability for small businesses to compete globally?

Without the Internet, there would be no Arqball or Arqspin, that’s for sure. And are we ever glad the Internet (not to mention, crazy fast fiber Internet) is around to help them do the kind of work they do.

We had the chance to catch up with Michael Holroyd, Director at Arqball and Nathan Blessing, Director of Business Development and Logistics for Arqspin. We talked about all things Arqball, their incredible Arqspin software and how Ting Internet powers their business all over the world.

Born in Charlottesville

Arqball was founded in 2010 by Holroyd and two professors at the University of Virginia. Holroyd was wrapping up his thesis on a complicated type of 3D scanning that had practical applications for him and other people in his field but wasn’t ready for commercialization. He saw opportunities beyond the academic world.

Not long after its inception, the nascent Arqball team was working on a project with the Fralin Museum of Art at UVA. The team had developed a platform for creating iPad catalogs and ebooks and wanted to include 360-degree photography in these slick digital resources for the Fralin Museum.

“At the time, we went there and we helped them, and it was a pretty labor-intensive process… creating all that 360 photography,” says Holroyd. “While we were doing that I think we all realized that with some extra tooling, and with an iPhone app, this was suddenly something that, instead of having a team of experts come and work on, you could just download off the App Store and get started right away. That’s where the idea for Arqspin originally came from and that was always kind of the goal. Make this so simple that anybody can get into it.”

Meet Arqspin

Arqspin is a photography platform for creating interactive 360 spins. Arqspin is a useful tool for e-commerce ventures of all sizes, from personal projects on eBay to large retailers.

“We’ve seen anything you can imagine. Any product that is unique and looks different on different sides,” says Blessing.

The list includes rare diamonds, shrunken heads (for Ripley’s Believe It Or Not), fitness before and after shots and even a building under construction photographed by drones.

So, why might a company want to offer interactive images?

“So you can imagine one 360-degree image that you can grab and rotate and view from any angle is going to be more fun to view than scrolling through 12 or 14 different still images.”

Making sites more interactive and engaging gives businesses a boost over their competition. Not to mention, Arqspin reduces overall product photography time. It’s faster, more efficient and can be more cost-effective.

Arqspin offers a simple software platform to capture images. They also offer motorized turntables, but you don’t necessarily require the Arqspin hardware. All customers need to create a 360-degree spin is a device to photograph with, the Arqspin iOS app, a turntable like a Lazy Susan and basic lighting set up to ensure a consistent image. Arqspin has cloud-based editing software so users can easily capture, upload and edit their images to prepare them for publication.

The ability to work smart with fiber Internet

The Arqball offices are located in Charlottesville, just a little off the Downtown Mall. Access to fiber Internet has defined the way Arqball does businesses and the way the team tries new things out at work every day.

“We’re much more likely to work here locally using the fast Internet to get all the data we need… then [we] just try things out until they work,” says Holroyd. “As opposed to having to commit to one idea and deploy it, see what happens, come back five minutes later, try it again.”

Ting fiber is so fast, you can upload and download up to 1000 Mbps over a wired in connection. That helps the Arqball team get information faster and test out new ideas immediately.

“A lot of times when things have a really fast turnaround, you can iterate and just try ideas really really fast until one of them works. And often, if you’re doing that on some remote server, you don’t get that kind of instant feedback.”

Arqspin doesn’t just use the Internet for their day-to-day operations. All of the spins created with Arqspin software are hosted by Arqball and deployed to the Internet. That’s hundreds of thousands of images that businesses of all shapes and sizes rely on.

“The Internet is vital to our business,” Blessing says. “We are a software as a service company. Without the Internet we would have no Arqspin.”

Transcript

Micheal Holroyd: Arqball is a sort of a research and development shop here in Charlottesville that focuses on computer vision and computer graphics.

Our main product is Arqspin, which is a photography platform for creating interactive 360 spins. Just really, really simple for people to use their phones or whatever camera they already have to create that kind of interactive experience.

Nathan Blessing: The birth of Arqspin was actually created through a project that we did through the University of Virginia Museum, where we were capturing old porcelain vases and 360 degree views.

And while we were doing that, I think we all realized that with some extra tooling and with an iPhone app, this was suddenly something that, you know, instead of having a team of experts come and work on, you could just download off the App Store and get started with right away.

Holroyd: Ripley's Believe It or Not is one of our customers, and they have a pretty endless supply of weird stuff. I think there was a month where only shrunken heads came through. That was that might have been the weirder one of the weirder ones.

Blessing: We have a myriad of diamonds that have been shot, including a collection of red diamonds.

Holroyd: We've done 360s of entire buildings before, using drones. They moved to a bunch of different positions around the building and got the photography they needed to make the spin.

We're definitely, you know, an internet business. Pretty much everything we do ends up being deployed on the web, so having good internet here at the office is something we use every day.