View Based Design for Stereo Panoramic Vision Systems

Panoramic imaging is becoming an increasingly important tool in the areas of mobile robotics and machine vision. In the area of panoramic stereo imaging for range measurements two views of the one scene can be captured by a single camera using a discontinuous mirror surface. It is critical in this case to optimise mirror shapes for this application. In this paper, the needs of panoramic stereo imaging are spelled out, and various mirror surfaces compared in terms of these needs. In particular, cone, constant gain and hyperboloidal mirrors shapes are examined.