Acquisition of stereo panoramas for display in VR environments

Abstract

Virtual reality systems are an excellent environment for stereo panorama displays. The acquisition and display methods described here combine high-resolution photography with surround vision and full stereo view in an immersive environment. This combination provides photographic stereo-panoramas for a variety of VR displays, including the StarCAVE[1], NexCAVE [2] , and CORNEA [3] . The zero parallax point used in conventional panorama photography is also the center of horizontal and vertical rotation when creating photographs for stereo panoramas. The two photographically created images are displayed on a cylinder or a sphere. The radius from the viewer to the image is set at approximately 20 feet, or at the object of major interest.A full stereo view is presented in all directions. The interocular distance, as seen from the viewer's perspective, displaces the two spherical images horizontally. This presents correct stereo separation in whatever direction the viewer is looking, even up and down. Objects at infinity will move with the viewer, contributing to an immersive experience. Stereo panoramas created with this acquisition and display technique can be applied without modification to a large array of VR devices having different screen arrangements and different VR libraries.

Acquisition of omnidirectional stereoscopic images and videos of dynamic scenes: a review

“…For instance, Romain et al 53 proposed a rotating platform with two degrees of freedom, which can rotate in azimuth and elevation to produce spherical omnistereoscopic images. More recently, Ainsworth et al 54 revisited the method of a rotating stereoscopic rig to minimize (not to eliminate as the authors stated) stitching problems. They reported their method to create stereoscopic panoramas 55 based on mosaicking partially overlapped scene's images, which they tested using an off-the-shelf digital camera (Panasonic Lumix) and a commercial rotating platform (GigaPan EPIC Pro Robotic Controller).…”