3D Ipix

[P3D Dylan The Hippy Wabbit <spacey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg Erker said:-

>  Perhaps the best thing would be to
>spin an RBT (with say 28 mm lenses) and take
>say 6 photos to cover 360 degrees horizontal.
>(there wouldn't be any vertical panning
>allowed beyond the vertical height of the
>image). Hopefully the edge distortion would
>be low enough that you could (relatively)
>seamlessly pan across image boundaries without
>painfull 3D (or 2d) distortions.

I saw something very like this on Discovery Channel a few weeks ago.  It
used film rather than a computer, which is still an advantage for the time
being.  Basically it used a pair of true panoramic cameras (24 mm by
whatever it took) which were spun around their common centre.  This gave
two loops of film with a 360 degree view on each.

For viewing the loops were loaded into a widget that looked a bit like a
viewmaster.  As the user turned around solid state gyroscopes caused the
electronics to move the film loops the other way.  The effect was said to
be like being there.  Of course you couldn't move forward or back or look
up.

The bad news is that it costs tens of thousands, restricting its use to
architects and the like.  He was said to be working on a consumer version
though.  :-)

Dave Spacey

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When you break rules break 'em good and hard.   - Terry Pratchett


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