360-deg panoramic camera using a mirror rotation mechanism
Toshiyasu Nakao, Atsushi Kashitani · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2000
In this paper, we describe a new panoramic camera that incorporates a 2-axes mirror rotation mechanism and image mosaicing software to get high-resolution panoramic images in a short time. The mirror is located in front of the camera via the mirror rotation mechanism to move the camera's view. Partial images taken with the mirror rotation are merged into a high-resolution panoramic image by mosaicing software. The 2-axes mirror rotation mechanism consist of a mirror pedestal and a cam. The image mosaicing software projects each partial image onto a projection surface around the rotation center of the mirror. In that process, the projection center is shifted from the original principal point of the lens or the viewpoint to the mirror rotation center, and the projection positions for each pixel of partial images are calculated by using the limiting point. With these features, our panoramic camera has four advantages: (1) accurate, continuous, high-resolution, large and endless (360 degrees wide) panoramic images; (2) short panoramic image acquisition time with fast mirror rotation; (3) small body size; and (4) endless (360 degrees wide) fast mirror rotation. We also describe its prototype and its application to the Internet broadcasting of a tennis game.