Panoramic Imaging: Sensor-Line Cameras and Laser Range-Finders

Preface

I find panoramic vision fascinating. Imagine, ifwe humans had panoramic vision, wewouldnot have words for in front and back (only relative to something else). As a result, we wouldn't use metaphors based on them, like “this is a backward society” or “this is the frontier of science”. Perhaps, then, we would be thinking differently…. Change eyes, change thinking… (Yiannis Aloimonos)

This book is about accurate panoramic imaging in the context of close-range photogrammetry, computer vision, computer graphics, or multimedia imaging, for applications where (very) high-resolution data need to be recorded for documenting or visualizing three-dimensional (3D) scenes or objects. For example, large-screen virtual reality systems often use panoramic images for various types of virtual tours.

One of the deplorable consequences of computers being used for image processing is that many grossly distorted pictures are provided on the Internet, and some have even been published in books and journals. Many landscape photographs get ignorantly stretched horizontally, to produce fake panoramic views. This book addresses high-quality panoramic imaging rather than panoramic imaging as already popular (at various levels of quality) for non-professional digital cameras, typically using some “stitching software” for combining a set of images into a larger image.

Sensor-line cameras have been designed since the 1980s, originally for “push-broom” viewing from an aircraft or satellite. (The book ...