Panomorph

Abstract: Modern surveillance and security systems demand a technological approach because only technology can provide highly efficient vigilance, a certainty of detection and a fast response 100% of the time. Recent developments, including new wide-angle lenses, advanced cameras, IP networks and video analysis technology, provide significant improvements in system performance and flexibility. This paper presents a new advanced surveillance system featuring a panoramic Panomorph lens for event detection, recognition and identification over a 360-degree area with 100% coverage. This innovative approach provides enhanced performance with better pixel/cost ratio. Intelligent video technology enables the video camera to be "more" than just a video camera; it allows the panoramic image to follow events (such as moving objects or unauthorized behavior) in real time, which in turn allows the operator to focus his/her activity on a narrow field pan/tilt camera without losing any information in the field. Adding incremental capabilities such as a Panomorph lens-based imager to an existing surveillance video system can provide improvements in operational efficiency and effectiveness. Foreseen applications are in the fields of border surveillance, high-security environments, aerospace and defense, mass transit, public security and wherever the need for total awareness is a prerequisite.

Abstract: During the last few years, innovative optical design strategies to generate and control image mapping have been successful in producing high-resolution digital imagers and projectors. This new generation of panoramic lenses includes catadioptric panoramic lenses, panoramic annular lenses, visible/IR fisheye lenses, anamorphic wide-angle attachments, and visible/IR panomorph lenses. Given that a wide-angle lens images a large field of view on a limited number of pixels, a systematic pixel-to-angle mapping will help the efficient use of each pixel in the field of view. In this paper, we present several modern applications of these modern types of hemispheric lenses. Recently, surveillance and security applications have been proposed and published in Security and Defence symposium. However, modern hemispheric lens can be used in many other fields. A panoramic imaging sensor contributes most to the perception of the world. Panoramic lenses are now ready to be deployed in many optical solutions. Covered applications include, but are not limited to medical imaging (endoscope, rigiscope, fiberscope...), remote sensing (pipe inspection, crime scene investigation, archeology...), multimedia (hemispheric projector, panoramic image...). Modern panoramic technologies allow simple and efficient digital image processing and the use of standard image analysis features (motion estimation, segmentation, object tracking, pattern recognition) in the complete 360° hemispheric area.

Abstract: The increasing trend to use vision sensors in transportation is driven both by legislation and consumer demands for higher safety and better driving experiences. Awareness of what surrounds an automotive vehicle can directly affect the safe driving and maneuvering of that vehicle. Consequently, panoramic 360° field-of-view (FoW) imaging is becoming an industry prerequisite. However, to obtain a complete view of the area around a vehicle, several sensor systems are necessary. This paper explains how panomorph optics can satisfy the needs of various vision applications with only one sensor or panomorph lens configuration. A panomorph lens is a hemispheric wide-angle anamorphic lens with enhanced resolution in a predefined zone of interest. Because panomorph lenses feature an optimal pixel-per-degree relationship, the resulting vision systems provide ideal area coverage, which in turn reduces and maximizes the processing. Here we present how panomorph technology is one of the most promising ways to integrate many automotive vision applications (processing/viewing) onto one single camera module. For example: a single panomorph sensor on the front of a vehicle could provide all the information necessary for assistance in crash avoidance, lane tracking, early warning alerts, parking aids, road sign and pedestrian detection, as well as various video monitoring views for difficult areas such as blind spots. Keywords: wide-angle lens, panoramic, panomorph, immersive, hemispheric, anamorphic, 360° vision systems, vision sensors, automotive vehicles, field of view, transportation, driver assistance systems, lane tracking, blind spot, pedestrian detection, road sign detection, parking assistance

Abstract: Tolerancing a lens is a basic procedure in lens design. It consists in first defining an appropriate set of tolerances for the lens, then in adding compensators with their allowable ranges and finally in selecting an appropriate quality criterion (MTF, RMS spot size, wavefront error, boresight error...) for the given application. The procedure is straightforward for standard optical systems. However, it becomes more complex when tolerancing very wide angle lenses (larger than 150 degrees). With a large field of view, issues such as severe off-axis pupil shift, considerable distortion and low relative illumination must be addressed. The pupil shift affects the raytrace as some rays can no longer be traced properly. For high resolution imagers, particularly for robotic and security applications, the image footprint is most critical in order to limit or avoid complex calibration procedures. We studied various wide angle lenses and concluded that most of the distortion comes from the front surface of the lens. Consequently, any variation of the front surface will greatly affect the image footprint. In this paper, we study the effects on the image footprint of slightly modifying the front surface of four different lenses: a simple double-gauss for comparison, a fisheye lens, a catadioptric system (omnidirectional lens) and a Panomorph lens. We also present a method to analyze variations of the image footprint. Our analysis shows that for wide angle lenses, on which the entrance pupil is much smaller than the front surface, irregularities (amplitude, slope and location) are critical on both aspherical and spherical front surfaces to predict the image footprint variation for high resolution cameras. Finally, we present how the entrance pupil varies (location, size) with the field of view for these optical systems.