True Spherical Camera: Image Capture Session with Prototype
Project Page: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/proje...
Wide angle imaging has had a history of over a century. While many of the existing wide angle imaging systems can capture the complete spherical field of view, we are yet to see a true spherical camera. A true spherical camera may be defined as one that has the following three properties: (i) A 4π field of view that enables it to (q)see(q) in all directions; (ii) a single center of projection to avoid parallax within the field of view; and (iii) a uniform spatial and angular resolution in order to achieve a uniform sampling of the field of view. The design consists of a spherical (ball) lens encased within a spherical detector shell. The detector shell has a uniform distribution of sensing elements, but with free space between neighboring elements, thereby making the detector partly transparent to light. We determine the optimal dimensions of the sensing elements and the diameter of the detector shell that produce the most compact point spread function. The image captured with such a camera has minimal blur and can be deblurred using spherical deconvolution. Current solid state technologies do not permit the fabrication of a high resolution spherical detector array. Therefore, in order to verify our design, we have built a prototype spherical camera with a single sensing element, which can scan a spherical image one pixel at a time.
This video shows a sample capture session with the proof-of-concept imaging device for capturing true spherical images.