1597 results about "Panorama" patented technology

A “Panoramic Viewfinder” provides an intuitive interactive viewfinder display which operates on a digital camera display screen. This interactive viewfinder provides real-time assistance in capturing images for constructing panoramic image mosaics. The Panoramic Viewfinder “brushes” a panorama from images captured in any order, while providing visual feedback to the user for ensuring that desired scene elements will appear in the final panorama. This visual feedback presents real-time stitched previews of the panorama while capturing images. In one embodiment, the viewfinder display of the Panoramic Viewfinder includes a “mosaic preview” which presents a stitched mosaic preview of the captured images; a live display window representing a “current content” of the camera viewfinder, which is mapped to a matching location within the mosaic preview; and an optional panoramic “cropping frame” overlaid onto the mosaic preview which illustrates a section of the mosaic which will survive a rectangular cropping of the mosaic.

A distortion corrected panoramic vision system and method provides a visually correct composite image acquired through wide angle optics and projected onto a viewing surface. The system uses image acquisition devices to capture a scene up to 360° or 4π steradians broad. An image processor corrects for luminance or chrominance non-uniformity and applies a spatial transform to each image frame. The spatial transform is convolved by concatenating the viewing transform, acquisition geometry and optical distortion transform, and display geometry and optical transform. The distortion corrections are applied separately for red, green, and blue components to eliminate lateral color aberrations of the optics. A display system is then used to display the resulting composite image on a display device which is then projected through the projection optics and onto a viewing surface. The resulting image is visibly distortion free and matches the characteristics of the viewing surface.

A panorama viewer is disclosed which facilitates navigation from within the panorama of a larger, structured system such as a map. The panorama viewer presents a viewport on a portion of a panoramic image, the viewport including a three-dimensional overlay rendered with the panoramic image. As the orientation of the viewport within the panoramic image changes, the three-dimensional overlay's orientation in three-dimensional space also changes as it is rendered with the panoramic image in a manner that matches the change in orientation of the viewport.

The focal length estimation method and apparatus claimed in this application aligns plural overlapping images with one another for constructing an image mosaic. This is accomplished by computing a planar perspective transformation between each overlapping pair of the images, computing from the planar perspective transformation a focal length of each image of the pair, computing from the focal length of each image a focal length transformation, computing a rotational transformation for each of the pair of images whereby a combination of the rotational transformation and the focal length transformation relates the respective image to a three-dimensional coordinate system. Registration errors between the pair of images are reduced by incrementally deforming the rotational transformation of one of the pair of images. The planar perspective transform is a matrix of warp elements, and the focal length is computed as a function of the warp elements, the function being derivable by constraining a first two rows or the first two columns of the matrix to have the same norm and to be orthogonal. The focal length of one image of a pair of images is found by applying the constraint on the matrix columns, while the focal length of the other image of the pair is found by applying the constraint on the matrix rows

Camera system and methods to capture panoramic imagery from a camera mounted on a moving platform, using low-cost digital image sensors. The panoramic imagery appears seamless and natural to the eye. The panoramic imaging system and methods are specifically designed to accommodate the long acquisition times of low-cost digital image sensors, despite the motion of the camera during image capture. Pairs of cameras are arranged about an axis and a pairwise firing sequence enables capturing a series of adjacent images without gap or overlap. Additionally, when combined with suitable supplemental sensors, the image data provide location information about objects in the image for use in elementary photogrammetry.

A panoramic high-dynamic range (HDR) image method and system of combining multiple images having different exposures and at least partial spatial overlap wherein each of the images may have scene motion, camera motion, or both. The major part of the panoramic HDR image method and system is a two-pass optimization-based approach that first defines the position of the objects in a scene and then fills in the dynamic range when possible and consistent. Data costs are created to encourage radiance values that are both consistent with object placement (defined by the first pass) and of a higher signal-to-noise ratio. Seam costs are used to ensure that transitions occur in regions of consistent radiances. The result is a high-quality panoramic HDR image having the full available spatial extent of the scene along with the full available exposure range.

A system for capturing super wide-angle panoramic images. In particular, a two-reflector system is disclosed which is substantially self-correcting in which optical aberrations are substantially eliminated, such as field curvature, astigmatism and the like. Moreover, the super wide-angle panoramic imaging apparatus of the invention captures a super-wide field of view from a substantially single reference viewpoint. The invention provides a substantially compact viewpoint, while also having a substantially flat and stigmatic image plane, in the context of a super wide-angle panoramic system. Devices and methods for capturing panoramic images of super wide-angle scenes are provided. In a particular embodiment of the invention, two reflectors are provided (e.g., one a hyperboloidal mirror, the other a concave ellipsoidal or spherical mirror), a relay system (e.g., optics such as a mirror, a lens, a pinhole and the like) and an image sensor (e.g., an electronic photo-sensor, a film and the like).

A panoramic annular lens system (PAL), a unitary video camera and a PC-based software system that unwraps a 360° video image into a seamless, distortion free horizontal image image in real time. The PAL system of the preferred embodiment has a 360° horizontal field of view and a 90° vertical field of view in a 40 mm diameter compact package. The invention is not limited to any particular type of lens system. In fact, there are numerous lens systems for providing a 360° panoramic view. The video camera may be a CCD or CMOS based device having a pixel resolution of either 1280×1024 (high resolution) or 720×480 (NTSC). The unwrapping system is a radiometric ray tracing program carried out using a computer's graphics card capabilities to produce highly efficient regional transformation while minimizing software overhead. The result is real time, high resolution 30 fps conversion from a spherical distorted image to a flat panoramic image in Cartesian coordinates.

A system and method of creating a panorama image from a series of source images includes registering adjoining pairs of images in the series based on common features within the adjoining pairs of images. A transform between each adjoining pair of images is estimated using the common features. Each image is projected onto a designated image in the series using the estimated transforms associated with the image and with images between the image in question and the designated image. Overlapping portions of the projected images are blended to form the panorama image.

The invention discloses a method for synthesizing annular video of 360 degrees for assistant drive of a vehicle. The method adopts a video acquisition unit, an annular video synthesis unit and a display control and storage unit, and has the characteristics of reliable stability, low cost and suitable batch production. The method can acquire video signals in real time for four super-wide-angle fish-eye cameras arranged at front, back, left and right of the vehicle, carries out treatment of fish-eye image correction, annular image mosaic and vision angle conversion on four channels of the video signals through a video decoding unit and a video synthesizing control unit to generate a panoramic displayed plan view of 360 degrees, achieves multiple display modes through the display control and storage unit, and can selectively store correlated video information. The method can provide surrounding scenes for a driver, and eliminate vision blind area thereof, and is favorable for the driver to achieve safe and accurate vehicle driving operations. The method is used for assistant drive for sedans, business vehicles and heavy trucks of various grades, and passenger coaches of different types.

The disclosure discloses a method and an apparatus for combining panoramic image. The method includes: obtaining multiple original images of the same scene, performing folding change and coordinates transformation to the multiple original images, and determining an overlapping area of the multiple original images; establishing a mathematical model of the multiple original images, aligning the overlapping area of the multiple original images, and transforming the multiple original images to a coordinate system of a reference image; obtaining the space transformation relationship among / between the multiple original images according to the coordinate system of the reference image, selecting an appropriate image combining strategy, and completing the combining of the images. The solution can realize obtaining scene picture with large field of view without reducing image resolution.

A system and process of morphing location-referenced panoramic images into views at nearby locations. When using panoramic images in an interactive tour, a user might desire to see the environment from viewpoints for which no panoramic images are available. This invention makes this possible. It enables a user to experience views from arbitrary locations in the environment, so as long as one or more panoramic images are available at nearby locations. In particular, this invention makes it possible to combine two non-overlapping geo-referenced panoramic video streams into a new video stream which seamlessly transitions between these streams. When used in a client-server architecture, this invention also makes it possible for the server to transmit a sparse sequence of panoramic images, and provide the user with a dense panoramic video stream, by synthesizing the missing panoramic images. Said system and process is also applicable to incomplete panoramic images, photographs, and video.

The invention is suitable for the field of unmanned planes and provides an unmanned plane panorama video-based virtual reality live broadcast system which comprises an unmanned plane, a mobility control terminal, a VR live broadcast cloud server, an immersion type visualization device, a VR processor and a panorama video camera. In a preferred solution, the unmanned plane panorama video-based virtual reality live broadcast system also comprises various kinds of wearable intelligent sensors that can be worn on all parts of a user. According to the virtual reality live broadcast system, VR live broadcast of an unmanned plane panorama video can be realized via three experience modes; specifically, the motional tendency of a user body can be felt via the wearable intelligent sensors and then can be converted into corresponding unmanned plane flight control instructions, the unmanned plane flight control instructions are sent to the mobility control terminal via the VR live broadcast cloud server, the control instructions are sent to the unmanned plane via the mobility control terminal, the unmanned plane synchronously performs flying motions after receiving the control instructions, a virtual operation user is embedded into the panorama video captured by the panorama video camera, then the panorama video is sent in real time to the immersion type visualization device in a reverse direction, and therefore VR interactive live broadcast effects can be realized.

Digital cameras and methods that help a user accurately align sequential photographs to create large panoramas and composite photographs derived from a sequence of smaller photographs. This effectively creates a higher resolution, or larger, photograph from a zigzag series of photographs using a low resolution camera. An algorithm running on the camera guides a user through the image-taking procedure, allowing him or her to select if a panoramic or composite photograph is to be taken, and optionally the number of images (width and height) needed to create the final image. The algorithm displays indicia, such as marks or a shadow (transparent) image, that are overlaid and moved over the live image during the image-taking process to help align the subsequent image to be taken with the previously recorded image.

Removes undesirable camera rotation from a panoramic video. Video frames are mapped to a sphere and then projected to a forward-looking planar video. Camera tracking or other techniques are used to derive camera position and orientation in each frame. From the camera orientation, a correcting rotation is derived and is applied to the sphere onto which the panoramic video was mapped. Re-projecting video from the rotation-corrected sphere reduces or eliminates camera rotation artifacts from the panoramic video. Rotation may be re-introduced and other visual effects may be added to the stabilized video. May be utilized in 2D virtual reality and augmented reality displays. Depth may be accepted by the system for objects in the video and utilized to create 3D stereoscopic virtual reality and augmented reality displays.

Provided herein are systems and methods for panoramic imaging. The present system includes multiple digital cameras having overlapping fields of view. The system further includes a control system that controls the geometry and action of the cameras to capture digital images or streams of image frames. The system further includes an image processing algorithm, the execution of which processes image inputs by the cameras into panoramic still images or movies in real time. The present method includes the steps of acquiring image information by multiple digital cameras having overlapping fields of view, analyzing each pair of image inputs having an overlapping field to identify an optimum line that makes the total error introduced by cutting and stitching the pair of image inputs along the line to be the minimum; and cutting and stitching the image inputs to generate panoramic images or movies.

A method for taking a panorama mosaic photograph includes displaying a partial image of a previously taken image as a guide image on a viewer of an image to be currently taken and taking a number of images constituting the panorama mosaic photograph according to a photography operation; projecting the taken images onto a common cylindrically curved surface; and joining the projected images into a single image.

Provided are a method and device for motion estimation and compensation to be performed on a panorama image. The motion estimation and compensation are performed on a panorama image with a 360° omni-directional view based on that the spatial relation between left and right borders of the panorama image is very high. Accordingly, it is possible to improve image quality through effective and precise estimation and compensation for the motion of a panorama image. In particular, it is possible to improve the image quality at the right and left edges of the panorama image.

A software suite for optimizing the de-warping of wide angle lens images includes a calibration process utilizing a calibration circle to prepare raw image data. The calibration circle is used to map the raw image data about a warped image space, which is then used to map a de-warped image space for processed image data. The processed image data is generated from the raw image data by copying color values from warped pixel coordinates of the warped image space to de-warped pixel coordinates of the de-warped image space. The processed image data is displayed as a single perspective image and a panoramic image in a click-to-position virtual mapping interface alongside the raw image data. A user can make an area of interest selection by clicking the raw image data, the single perspective image, or the panoramic image in order to change the point of focus within the single perspective image.

Methods and apparatus are disclosed for guiding a camera user to take an appropriate set of component photographs to be stitched into a stitched panoramic photograph of a scene. In one example embodiment, the camera constructs and displays a video mosaic while the user sweeps the field of view of the camera over the scene. The camera computes the number and locations of a set of component photographs that will tile the scene, and then guides the user to sweep field of view of the camera over the scene a second time, visiting each component photograph location. A high-resolution component photograph may be taken at each location. Optionally, the camera gathers information from frames used to construct the video mosaic and uses the information to select settings for focus, exposure, or both to be used during the taking of the component photographs.

Device, system and method of panoramic multiple field of view imaging. For example, an in-vivo imaging device includes an imager able to acquire an in-vivo image including at least a first image-portion and a second image-portion, the first image-portion corresponding to a first field of view of the in-vivo imaging device, and the second image-portion corresponding to a second field of view of the in-vivo imaging device

An extra-oral digital panoramic dental x-ray imaging system is disclosed for multi-layer panoramic and transverse X-ray imaging. The system includes an X-ray source and a digital imaging device capable of “real time” frame mode output. The source and imaging device are mounted in a mechanical manipulator defining the trajectory of a predetermined image layer. The imaging device communicates with a processor that generates a frames memory from which an image reconstruction mechanism composes the final images. For “real time” imaging, the frames memory is a fast data storage system such as RAM. The processing unit executes the reconstruction algorithms, allowing the system to selectively generate dental panoramic X-ray images, dental transverse x-ray images and dental tomosynthetic 3D images.

A system and process for attaching tags to panoramic video. Tags provide information when viewing panoramic images, serve as references to specific actions and serve as reference for outside systems into a panoramic image database. Objects in a video can be tagged. It defines tags through 4-D time-space curves, which specify the 3-D location of a tagged object over time. It provides a user-friendly mechanism for defining said curves in panoramic video, which rely on curve fitting techniques to minimize the number of images to be labeled. It provides a mechanism for annotating tags with further information. When displaying tagged panoramic video, tags are graphically superimposed on the panoramic video feed using projective projection techniques. From this visualization, a user can then select a given tag and invoke an associated action. Additionally a mechanism whereby tags and associated user-provided information are used as index into panoramic image databases is provided.

The invention discloses a panorama parking calibration method and a device, and an automatic calibration method, wherein the panorama parking calibration method comprises the steps of obtaining pictures which is captured by an automobile camera; using default parameters of a panorama parking system to generate an aerial view; distinguishing tag blocks on the aerial view; distinguishing controlling points according to the tag blocks; obtaining actual positions and ideal positions of the controlling points, wherein the controlling points are intersection points of lines and distributed in a net shape, and the ideal positions are appointed positions in the aerial view; and optimizing by utilizing difference between the actual positions and the ideal positions of each controlling point in the aerial view and obtaining lens distortion correction parameters and perspective transformation parameters of a wind-angle camera which corresponds to the aerial view. The area of the tag blocks is greater than that of the intersection points and is easy to distinguish. A light color is adopted on distinguish strips and a deep color is adopted on a carrier so as to reduce effects which are caused by reflect light, an absolute coordinate of a calibration pattern on a coordinate system is positioned and calibrated accurately, and a success rate of calibration is improved.

The present invention provides an image acquisition and viewing system that employs a fish-eye lens and an imager, such as, a CCD array, to obtain a wide angle image, e.g., an image of a hemispherical field of view. The system of the invention further includes a primary display for displaying the image, and a secondary display for presenting a perspective-corrected view of a selected portion of the image. A processor effects correction of a selected portion of the image for distortions introduced by the fish-eye lens by utilizing methods according to the teachings of the invention. The processor further effects the display of the image and its perspective-corrected portion thereof on the primary and the secondary displays, respectively. Moreover, the processor effects the display of a graphical object on the first display to delineate the portion that is presented on the secondary display. This allows a viewer to view simultaneously the image and the perspective-corrected portion, thereby gleaning information regarding the context of the perspective-corrected portion within the entire image while viewing it.

An interactive computer program for seaming a number of images into a panorama. Various parameters which affect how the images are seamed can be changed interactively. Parameters such as position, orientation, focal length, which image will be visible where images overlap, and the opacity curve can be changed. The result of any change is immediately visible. A user can move the control points, thereby “morphing” or distorting the contribution to the panorama of an image. Each pixel is assigned an “alpha” value which indicates the opacity value of that pixel in an area where images overlap. Alpha values can be changed according to a pre-established curve. The original images are not changed. Instead, only the transform between the original images and the final panorama is changed.

A panoramic device includes a base member having a flat lower surface suitable to be supported by a tripod. A clamp member has a flat upper surface rotatably interconnected within a single plane of rotation with the base that includes a first rotatable knob to selectively inhibit the rotation of the clamp member with respect to the base. The flat upper surface includes a central region that is at a different elevation than another portion of the flat upper surface. The clamp includes a pair of opposed surfaces suitable to detachably secure a camera thereto. The one of the opposed surfaces is maintained in a fixed relationship with respect to the clamp member. The other one of the opposed surfaces is in a movable relationship with respect to the clamp member using a second rotatable knob. The first knob and the second knob are rotatably connected with respect to one another. The panoramic device includes a level bubble visible on an upper surface at a location exterior to the central region of the clamp.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method for providing an indoor virtual experience using a portable terminal, the method comprising the steps of: acquiring one or more photographs photographed indoors; acquiring 3D building floor plan information calculated from the one or more photographs; acquiring a panoramic photograph configured such that the one or more photographs match with the 3D building floor plan information; and providing, according to a user input, an indoor virtual experience interface in which the 3D building floor plan information is guided on the panoramic photograph.

A panoramic camera design that is lower cost, robust, stable and more user friendly than prior art designs. The camera design makes use of a unified molded structure of optical material to house a mirror, aligned sensor, and lens assembly. The unified molded structure of the camera keeps the sensed optical path enclosed to minimize dust and user's fingers and maintain optical alignment.