Odyssey, a pioneering AI startup founded by tech experts Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, is making waves with an innovative new project. By equipping hikers with 25-pound camera backpacks, loaded with six cameras, two lidar sensors, and an inertial measurement unit. Odyssey captures 360-degree, high-res views of real-world scenes like forests, beaches, and parks.
Like Google’s Street View Trekker, this setup records “physics-accurate” details to help train AI to create lifelike, cinematic digital worlds.
Odyssey aims to feed this detailed 3D data into AI models and allow creators to build realistic virtual scenes with natural lighting, motion, and geometry. This technology seeks to overcome the limits of current AI, making it easier for developers to produce high-quality digital scenes for movies, games, and interactive media.
Odyssey’s project recently received a significant boost, raising $18 million in a Series A funding round led by EQT Ventures, with support from GV and Air Street Capital. This investment, which brings the company’s total funding to $27 million, will accelerate data collection efforts across California and expand to new regions soon.
However, Despite the promise, Odyssey faces privacy considerations, given past regulatory concerns with similar projects like Google’s Street View. The company plans to prioritize privacy as it scales operations.
The company wrote in a post on its blog:
“We think it will be impossible for generative models to generate Hollywood-grade worlds that feel alive without training on a vast volume of rich, multimodal real-world 3D data. We believe an advanced generative world-building model will unlock a better way to create film, games, and more.”
With its cutting-edge approach, Odyssey is set to redefine digital world-building, bringing creators one step closer to realistic, AI-driven environments.
