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Concept
Omnidirectional (360-degree) camera
Summary
In photography, an omnidirectional camera (from "omni", meaning all), also known as 360-degree camera, is a camera having a field of view that covers approximately the entire sphere or at least a full circle in the horizontal plane.
Omnidirectional cameras are important in areas where large visual field coverage is needed, such as in panoramic photography and robotics.
A camera normally has a field of view that ranges from a few degrees to, at most, 180°. This means that it captures, at most, light falling onto the camera focal point through a hemisphere. In contrast, an ideal omnidirectional camera captures light from all directions falling onto the focal point, covering a full sphere. In practice, however, most omnidirectional cameras do not cover the entire sphere. Many cameras which are referred to as omnidirectional cover the full 360° along the equator of the sphere but exclude the top and bottom. In the case that they do cover the full sphere, the captured light rays do not intersect exactly in a single focal point.
Various techniques can be used to generate 360-degree images.
These models are used with a fisheye lens. The lens bends the angle of the shot to take a larger radius of the selected subject. It is not possible to take a complete 360-degree picture with this technique because there is always a dead angle directly behind the lens.
360-degree cameras with two lenses are probably the most common type, as they can accommodate a full 360-degree angle with two lenses facing each other. A camera takes pictures and videos with an angle of just over 180 degrees, e.g. 220 degrees. These are then converted into a 360-degree object using software. Problems are often caused by errors that can happen at any given time. This means that an incorrect combination of the images can result in an unclean cut edge that is difficult or impossible to remove.
Depending on the application, manufacturers use more than two camera lenses to produce the images. One of the first cameras was Sony' Fourthview multihead camera and the throwing camera, Panono.
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