Apparatus and method for acquiring uniform-resolution panoramic images
First Claim
1. An imaging apparatus comprisinga cylinder with polygonal cross section having flat faces and reflective outer surface, a plurality of image detecting means placed so as to have a common virtual optic center, each receiving light from a front field of view, reflected off a cylinder face, to acquire images of a conical ring of the front field of view around axial direction, a single image detecting means placed so as to have its optic center coincide with the common virtual optic center and acquiring the image of axial field of view centered at and containing the axis, means for adjusting the image detecting means so they provide a contiguous and uniform-resolution front field of view, and means responsive to said image detecting means to create a panoramic image from the individual images provided by the image detecting means.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A panoramic imaging system is constructed to acquire panoramic images of a very large field of view. The field of view ranges from being nearly hemispherical, to being omni directional with some parts occluded. The panoramic imaging system is comprised of multiple imaging sensors, each imaging different parts of the field of view. The panoramic image is constructed by mosaicing the images taken by different sensors that share a common viewpoint. The resolution across the entire panoramic image is substantially the same. Specific embodiments of the camera provide specific combinations of features, such as different visual fields.
-
Citations
7 Claims
-
1. An imaging apparatus comprising
a cylinder with polygonal cross section having flat faces and reflective outer surface, a plurality of image detecting means placed so as to have a common virtual optic center, each receiving light from a front field of view, reflected off a cylinder face, to acquire images of a conical ring of the front field of view around axial direction, a single image detecting means placed so as to have its optic center coincide with the common virtual optic center and acquiring the image of axial field of view centered at and containing the axis, means for adjusting the image detecting means so they provide a contiguous and uniform-resolution front field of view, and means responsive to said image detecting means to create a panoramic image from the individual images provided by the image detecting means.
Specification