360mash is a simple desktop tool to post-process and render 2D, 180 and 360 video. The aim is to develop a free, cross-platform, lightweight tool for clipping, reframing and anonymising video files and exporting the resulting video as fast as possible. At present, the tool can accomplish a range of transformations of a video file, such as:
- Import a 2D, 180 or 360 video and export a clip, ie. a trimmed, shorter version.
- Import a 180 or 360 video and export a clip that retains the original equirectangular format.
- Import a 180 or 360 video and export a reframing of the video as a 2D video.
- Import a video and apply basic filters to anonymise the video.
- Import a 2D, 180 or 360 video and export at a different resolution.
- Zoom in and pan a 180 or 360 video to find the best view in the scene for export.
- Zoom in and pan a 2D video to find the best view for export.
- Real-time playback of the video with transforms and filters applied.
- Export the desired result to a standard H.264 video file using the CPU or GPU (faster).
There is a basic help guide that documents how to install, setup and use the software on Windows 10/11 and macOS.
The 360mash software package was initially developed as a prototype in 2021 by Artur Kovacs (@ArturKovacs) and Jonas Noermark (@jnoerm19) according to the design specifications of Paul McIlvenny (@skandilocks) and Jacob Davidsen (@codeslayer84) in the BigSoftVideo team at Aalborg University, Denmark.
As far as we know, there is still no commercial or free software tool that does all that 360mash can do in one neat package. Therefore, we decided in 2024 to release both a build of the beta version and the codebase for open source development.
Modifications, mainly to the UI, were made in late 2024 by Alexander Stein (@LiminalSpaces) to prepare the code for open-source release.
Given that the package is a beta release, and the UI leaves a lot to be desired, much improvement is possible:
- New and improved filter shaders.
- Filter pipeline presets, eg. with user-defined filter settings plus selection and ordering defaults.
- Create (multiple) Filter zones for each filter.
- UI enhancement, eg. better handling of IN/OUT points and playhead overlap.
- Separate the
Convert 360 to 2Dtransform from the reframing operation, eg. add a new transform in the pipeline for just reframing 2D and 360. - Updating
Video ToolBoxGPU encoder for contemporary macOS (eg. Apple ARM Silicon). - Options for H.265 encoding.
- Tackling export pipeline bottlenecks.
- Keeping packages updated, eg. Electron, Webpack, Node, Yarn.
- Streamlining build creation and notarisation (eg. Apple).
- Fix bugs.
Please clone or fork the repo and contribute on GitHub.
We welcome pull requests on the development branch or branches off development.
We particularly welcome contributions that build new and better shaders for anonymisation.
There are no submodules in the current codebase, but if you checkout earlier commits before 10.1.2025 then you will need to download and initialise the submodule chunky-boy.
This can be done, for example, with the command:
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Big-Video/360mash.git
The original code was built with Node v20.9.0, Electron v19, Webpack v5 and Yarn v3.1.1.