ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how the ubiquitous technology of surveillance cameras can be enhanced to provide a seamless all-round viewing platform. Standard cameras usually have a very limited field of view and this restricts usage in a variety of vision applications, such as surveillance, robotics, and optoelectronics for vehicle driver assistance. Whichever optical process is used to acquire 360° images of a scene, significant image distortion is inevitable. Equirectangular projection requires that all lines of latitude and longitude are equally spaced. Because a projection of a complete sphere is typically twice as wide as it is high, and as the points representing the north and south poles are spread along the top and bottom, it is clear that such a projection from a spherical to a flat surface results in extreme distortion. Most 360° cameras, or camera systems, do not image a complete spherical panorama.
