Digital video panoramic image capture and display system
First Claim
1. A panoramic digital video camera for recording incident light from three-dimensional images comprising:
- a scanning head comprising a rotating wide-angle lens which collects the incident light;
azimuthal means of rotating the scanning head;
a linear array sensor axis;
optical means for projecting the light from the lens onto the sensor, which includes;
a 45 degree front surface mirror;
a dove prism counter-rotated to the scanning head;
a first achromatic relay lens;
a second achromatic relay lens; and
a front-surface mirror; and
means for maintaining the light projected from the lens stationarily on the sensor during scanning,whereby when the scanning head is rotated a vertical slice of light collected by the lens is reflected along the axis of rotation by the 45-degree front surface mirror, which then is relayed by the achromatic relay lens to the dove prism which derotates the image and passes it to the second relay lens which converges the image onto the front-surface mirror which then projects the image stationarily onto the sensor array, an electrical signal is produced from which the image can be reproduced.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system performing capture and display of both still and real-time motion picture panoramic images comprised of 360 degrees in azimuth and ±180 degrees in declination for a virtual spherical field of view wherein image capture is achieved via a horizontally scanned vertical slit image passing through a fish-eye lens, mirrors, and prisms rotated under servo motion control onto a stationary line-scan sensor to build up a continuous two dimensional image. A host computer system monitors a position encoder on the optical head, sends motion commands to the servo controller, controls sampling rate and integration time for the line-scan sensor, and does image data processing, encoding, and storage. Additional mechanisms in the optical head permit optical and solid-state image magnification, selective field of view and sub-sampling of pixel data, optical horizon shifting, and streak and slit-scan camera effects. Image display is possible either through various methods of mapping the spherical image to a conventional flat display, or using the same optical head to project the image onto the interior of a spherical screen. Synchronous image scanning and projection from a single optical head is accommodated. Variations on the optical head includes options for stereoscopic imagery and miniaturized optics. Designs permitting both adaptive and interactive control of image capture and display are presented.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A panoramic digital video camera for recording incident light from three-dimensional images comprising:
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a scanning head comprising a rotating wide-angle lens which collects the incident light; azimuthal means of rotating the scanning head; a linear array sensor axis; optical means for projecting the light from the lens onto the sensor, which includes; a 45 degree front surface mirror; a dove prism counter-rotated to the scanning head; a first achromatic relay lens; a second achromatic relay lens; and a front-surface mirror; and means for maintaining the light projected from the lens stationarily on the sensor during scanning, whereby when the scanning head is rotated a vertical slice of light collected by the lens is reflected along the axis of rotation by the 45-degree front surface mirror, which then is relayed by the achromatic relay lens to the dove prism which derotates the image and passes it to the second relay lens which converges the image onto the front-surface mirror which then projects the image stationarily onto the sensor array, an electrical signal is produced from which the image can be reproduced. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A panoramic digital video camera for recording incident light from three-dimensional images comprising:
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two scanning heads, each comprising a rotating wide-angle lens which collects the incident light, said heads being fixed in location with respect to each other at a stereographic separation; azimuthal means of rotating the scanning heads; two linear sensor arrays, one corresponding to each scanning head; optical means for projecting the light from the two lenses onto the sensor arrays; means for maintaining the light projected from the lenses stationarily on the sensors during scanning; whereby when the scanning heads are rotated a vertical slice of incident light collected by each lens is constantly projected onto the corresponding sensor array, which produces electrical signal from which the image can be stereoscopically produced and recorded. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification