Ricoh is taking pre-orders of the RICOH R Development Kit, featuring the first camera capable of delivering up to 24 continuous hours of fully spherical, 360-degree live video streams.

Showcased at Mobile World Congress 2017, the camera can be pre-ordered from http://ricohR.ricoh, with shipments scheduled to start in May 2017. The sales price will be $499.

Using Ricoh's fully spherical imaging technology, the RICOH R Development Kit can live-stream fully spherical, 360-degree images in 2K resolution at 30 frames per second. Unique to RICOH R technology is the stitching of video within the camera in real time to the Equirectangular Projection Format, which is the standard format for fully spherical images. Video is then output via HDMI or USB, and-by using an AC power adapter, continuous, live streaming up to 24 hours is possible. The camera records onto a micro SD card, which enables the body to be thin and lightweight.

The RICOH R Development Kit consists of the camera, camera stand, downloadable software development kit (SDK), plus image-control tools and source code. Using the camera's open API and the "RICOH R Console" image-control tool source code available through GitHub, the camera can be controlled via USB, which will enable its use in a variety of environments and industries such as telepresence and computer vision.