Tilted Camera Mount for Dual Lens Underwater Housing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing underwater camera housings cause light refraction, leading to image distortion, particularly in dual-lens camera systems, where different lenses are affected differently, making compensation for these effects more complex.
Innovation Solution
The underwater housing design features a mounting plate with offset domes that secure the dual-lens camera at a tilt angle, ensuring both optical axes intersect the dome centers, minimizing distortion and allowing for equal refractive effects across lenses, thus simplifying image stitching and focus adjustment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a traditional underwater housing with flat ports is used, then the camera is protected from water damage, but light refraction causes image distortion particularly affecting dual-lens systems differently
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies spherical dome ports instead of flat ports to eliminate refraction distortion. The spherical geometry ensures that light rays pass through the water-dome-camera interface without angular deviation, maintaining optical accuracy for both lenses in the dual-lens system while preserving waterproof protection.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs asymmetric dome positioning and camera tilting to compensate for the lateral offset between the two lenses. Each lens has its own dome positioned and oriented specifically to align its optical axis with the dome center, ensuring equal refraction effects despite the lenses' different positions.
2Area of moving object
If dual-lens camera is used for spherical imaging, then field of view is expanded, but distortion compensation becomes more complex due to differential refraction effects
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses asymmetric dome-camera configuration where each lens has a dedicated dome positioned to align with its optical axis. The camera is tilted at a specific angle to accommodate the lateral offset between lenses, ensuring both lenses experience identical refraction conditions, thereby simplifying distortion compensation while maintaining expanded field of view.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local optimization by providing separate domes for each lens rather than a single shared dome. Each dome is positioned and oriented to match its corresponding lens's optical requirements, allowing independent optimization of light paths for both lenses while maintaining consistent refraction effects.
3Ease of manufacture
If camera is mounted perpendicular to housing plane, then alignment is simplified, but optical axes do not intersect dome centers causing increased distortion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a tilted camera mount rather than perpendicular mounting to achieve proper optical alignment. The camera is angled so that each lens's optical axis intersects its corresponding dome center, compensating for the lateral offset between lenses. This asymmetric mounting configuration optimizes optical performance while remaining manufacturable.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This configuration reduces optical distortion and focus shift, enabling clearer images and simplified image processing by ensuring equal field of view changes for each lens, while also allowing for better buoyancy management to maintain neutral underwater balance.
Implementation Method 1
the housing may refract light passing through it, thereby distorting the images captured by the camera
Data Source
AI summary
An underwater housing includes a mounting plate, a first dome attached to a first surface of the mounting plate, and a second dome attached to a second surface of the mounting plate in a back-to-back configuration. A camera mount for a dual-lens camera is oriented at a tilt angle relative to a plane of a mounting plate. The dual-lens camera has laterally offset back-to-back lenses. The tilt angle is set such that the optical axes of the dual-lens camera intersect the center points of the respective domes.