HIGH-RESOLUTION SINGLE-VIEWPOINT PANORAMIC CAMERA AND METHOD OF OBTAINING HIGH-RESOLUTION PANORAMIC IMAGES WITH A SINGLE VIEWPOINT

The present invention provides a method and apparatus of obtaining single and video, high-resolution, panoramic images of a large field-of-view scene with a single viewpoint. The system consists of a segmented cap lens, multiple imaging sensors and imaging lenses. The cap lens is segmented to capture an individual sub-field of the entire panorama. In addition, the cap lens is optimized to relay the optical centers of the component cameras into a single viewpoint therefore reducing parallax errors. A high-resolution panoramic image with reduced artifacts is reconstructed by mosaicking multiple images taken by component cameras. The entire system is based upon refractive lenses to minimize the path length of light rays, enabling a relatively compact design for practical applications.