NVIDIA has announced an advanced screenshot tool called Ansel which allows users much greater control over in-game photo capturing, including the ability to shoot 3D 360 degree imagery which is viewable in VR headsets. You can preview Ansel’s output today in the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Google Cardboard.

Ansel is an API which, when integrated into specific games, makes it easy to capture extremely high fidelity in-game still imagery. In addition to being able to shoot HDR images at up to 8 gigapixels, Ansel also makes it easy to capture 360 degree screenshots in both mono and stereo. These VR-viewable images come with all the other Ansel benefits as well, like HDR capture and post-processing filters, according to Nvidia.

An unwrapped mono view captured with Ansel
An unwrapped mono 360 view captured with Ansel

The quality of the 360 3D screenshots produced by the tool is very impressive; so much so that this could be the future of how we choose to peek inside of games before choosing to buy.

Ansel will launch “soon,” and will be released first supported by The Division, The Witness, Law Breakers, The Witcher: Wild Hunt, Paragon, No Man’s Sky, and Unreal Tournament.

In the meantime, you can preview scenes captured with Ansel on the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Google Cardboard (or on a boring old monitor). Nvidia tells us how:

Google Cardboard – Nvidia VR Viewer

  1. Install the Cardboard app from the Google Play Store.
  2. Install the NVIDIA VR Viewer app from the Google Play Store.
  3. Launch the NVIDIA VR Viewer Cardboard app and install your phone* into the Cardboard holder
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*Phone requirements: Android™ Lollipop or newer OS, 2 GB RAM

Oculus Rift and HTC Vive

Download Ansel 360 images and view through Virtual Desktop.

  1. Download Ansel 360 images to your PC
  2. Download Virtual Desktop here
  3. Launch Virtual Desktop and select theappropriate option to “Launch Virtual Desktop in…”
    • Vive: Steam VR Mode
    • Rift: Other Mode
    • vd-steam
  4. Virtual Desktop will default to the SETTINGS screenvd-settings
  5. Put on your VR headset
  6. Adjust Virtual Desktop’s settings to your comfort
  7. Within Virtual Desktop, click on PHOTOSvd-photos
  8. Drag and drop photos into the empty space, within the VR headset, you will now be placed into the center of your 360° photo
  9. After a few moments the Virtual Desktop window within your headset will disappear
  10. Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to cycle through your photos

Disclosure: Nvidia paid for travel and accommodation for one Road to VR correspondent to attend an event where information for this article was gathered.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Sam Illingworth

    Witcher 3? Is it Witcher E going to support VR?!

  • francoislaberge

    Just tried this out. Surprisingly it doesn’t support stereo. It’s spherical mono. Was hoping for spherical stereoscopic. Hopefully they add that soon too.

    • benz145

      There is support for stereo, perhaps you were looking at a mono photo or maybe stereo is only supported on certain phones?

      • francoislaberge

        I was finding that the 3D in game shots were either not there or very subtle. It definitely was obvious in their Ray Traced ones. Maybe I’m crazy.

  • Vlad Sharov

    Will this work with GearVR?

    • Vlad Sharov

      Yes it works, Just put it in Oculus folder and make a 360Photos folder

  • Pistol Pete

    Nvidia does great things with VR! Definitely going with Nvidia this next round!

  • insum snoy

    Virtual desktop wont open those images for me. It wont even let me import them. Tested on Vive and Rift.

  • Kenny Thompson

    Surprised you don’t just say “View em in Oculus Photos”

  • Debin Chen

    I actually made many in-game 360 VR screen shots (both mono and stereo) from game DOOM 3 BFG. Since DOOM 3 game source code is fully available, I am able to modify the game engine to generate 6 views (cube views) or 12 views (stereo) then save screen shot. It can be read by all VR platforms because the apps takes the 6 or 12 cuveview photos. Note this is specific DOOM 3 engine mod. Nvidia is capable to do this because their 3D vision tech essentially can generate 2 views (stereo) to any games. By extension, they can generate 6 cubeviews too. However, to be in good quality, the game itself is better to be friendly to generate good cube views.

  • Psycold

    Pretty bummed I just ordered a 980 ti for $650 just over a month ago because I have no patience and wanted the best current V.R. experience with my Vive. The card is great but I went from two 970’s so for 2d games that support SLI (and that have good scaling), I actually took a hit in the performance. What bums me out is that I can’t even buy a second 980 ti for VR SLI because it’s only utilized in the ansel cards. I feel like that is something that could be resolved via hardware…then again I’m not a developer.

    • DougP

      I’m in similar boat.
      Just got my 980ti (zotac amp extreme) like 2mos ago for my new VR PC.
      Now debating getting a 2nd one for my originally planned SLI setup…or waiting for new 1000 series.

      • MightyBobarian

        Wait for the 1000 series. There are going to be so many more improvements specifically for VR with them. I’m in same boat, I have SLI-970s and it just isn’t cutting it.

  • Debin Chen

    Regarding free cam part of Ansel features, some old games already have in-game support (indirectly, with console command, config file change etc), notably Unreal 3 games such as Mass Effect series, Unreal Tournament 3, Turok 2008, and another non Unreal engine game such as the evil within.

  • Lee Swain

    Do they work on PlayStation VR? I know there are ways to view 360 images in PSVR, so in theory Ansel images should work.