Xybernaut Corporation and Tokyo-based AOS Technologies, have teamed to provide live geo-coded location images that allow a viewer to “see” images as if he or she were actually in a vehicle.
The Location View System is a multi-headed and fully automated 360-degree panoramic image capture and mapping system. It rapidly produces geo-coded location view imagery as it is moved — indoors or out.
Xybernaut, which makes wireless wearcams, has been granted an exclusive license to market and integrate the proprietary Location View Systems (LVS) and has been granted non-exclusive rights worldwide.
The system can be mounted on a variety of transport systems ranging from simple motorized or hand-propelled carts to armored robotic platforms and conventional cars and trucks.
In related news, D-Link is offering a new version of its i2eye VideoPhone that is wireless. The D-Link DVC-1100 system is compliant with both 802.11b and 802.11g and turns any TV into a broadband videophone. It uses H.323 for video streaming over the Internet, and can connect with other devices based on the same protocol, including applications such as Microsoft NetMeeting (now going bye, bye).
Competing 360 streaming video developers include:
- Portland’s iMove (above), has a compact 6 camera surround video unit. The SEALs will use ‘em.
- Immersive Media puts 11 cameras in a soccor ball-size device.
- EyeSee360 offers panoramic images using mirrors.
- The FlyCam provides real-time panoramic video by stitching together images from multiple video cameras pointed in different directions.
- Full View points multiple cameras up into mirrors creating a 480 X 3500 pixel image.
- Panoramic cameras like Remote Reality’s bowl-shaped mirror or Egg Solution’s lens lets Netvision 360 do video.
- Remote Reality has a a multi-viewpoint 3D video system. It sounds like CMU’s Visualized Reality – an exo-panorama, like viewing a Quicktime model VR from the outside (see my Matrix the City story).
@City produces street-level, 360-degree panoramic image maps called StreetView. StreetView provides geo-coded street-level, high-resolution panoramic views on the web. The StreetView™ system consists of 360-degree image acquisition using a proprietary scanning system, image processing to generate geo-coded panoramic image databases, and integration with web browsing software. It’s used for city planning, economic development, real estate, business promotion and tourism.
Apple’s Quicktime VR, of course, started it all. Panoramic still photography is generally done sequentially or in one or two shots using mirrors or fisheye lenses. Then the image is processed for a dynamic 360 view. Pixaround.com, one of my favorite panoramic still programs, is also one of the most inexpensive and easiest to master. It creates a long jpg still. A java applet turns it into a dynamic VR. Anyone can do it.
VR tools and Photoshop Plug-ins are available at Easypano.net, Panoramic.net, Panoguide.com (software) and Philippe Hurbain’s Philosphere. They review all the available Panorama software and offer helpful tips.
Real-time panoramic video is not available yet (to my knowledge). It would require a video camera pointing at a mirror, a high-bandwidth transmission media, and a real-time decoder/deconvoluter. Not that it’s impossible. AOS and Xybernaut may – or may not – be talking about real-time, 360 video.
Full View reviews the different approaches to 360 degree video.
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Multiple cameras, each looking out into the scene directly in a different direction: Individual images cannot be integrated seamlessly unless objects are distant, and even then, only with time-consuming complex image processing that blurs the images. Users include www.imoveinc.com and www.genextech.com and www.ipix.com. | ||
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Single camera looking in different directions at different instants: Images of moving objects are distorted, fragmented, or missing, and video is not possible. Users include www.ipix.com and www.panoscan.com. | ||
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Single camera looking out through a single fisheye-type or panoramic lens: Images of objects that are close to the camera are distorted irretrievably, the scene must be well illuminated or slow changing, and images are captured with low resolution. Users include www.ipix.com and www.behere.com. | ||
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Single camera looking off a single nonplanar mirror: Images have low optical quality, the scene must be very brightly illuminated or static, and images are captured with low resolution. Users include www.behere.com and www.remotereality.com and www.kaidan.com and www.genextech.com and www.vri.ca. | ||
Surround Video Webcams start by screwing in a 180 degree fisheye lenses into a netcam like the Axis ($500) or a high resolution Webcam ($1300). No mechanical P/T/Z control is needed – a digital zoom is used.
To create 360 surround video, you can point a camera straight up into a mirrored bowl. That creates a doughnut-like video image. BeHere (using a RealVideo player) and others use this technique. The problem with 360 degree video is bandwidth. It requires an image that is (in effect) close to 1600 pixels long by 240 pixel high.
An HDTV video camera and very broadband is required for decent 360 video quality. A shirt-pocket size OQO PDA running XP and Equator’s video encoder on a chip might uplink 360 video at 1-2 mbps (or more). A JVC pro-sumer HDTV camcorder may have the (720p) resolution to supply live, 360 degree video.
Real-time, HDTV video encoding, using Windows Media 9 or MPEG-4, may soon be able to uplink while mobile using 4G Clouds. With 4G (or a “flying hot spot”), vehicles might transmit 360 videos. Anywhere. Live.
An MPEG-4 Webcam and high rez, Wi-Fi netcams, like the IQEye4 will use Equator’s MPEG-4 chips and Reality Commerce software. That should lower bandwidth requirements. Image sensors can be LANed. Hide ‘em in a rock. Put ‘em on a Seattle to Portland WiFi Link before the Forest Service wastes (another) $100 million of (our) resources. Hundreds of millions will up in smoke in Oregon in 2004 and lives will be lost. That’s a given. Somebody tell Bill Lafferty.
If you have bandwidth to burn, look into Ultra High Definition Chips with 8.3 million-pixel (3840 x 2160) sensors. They’ll be integrated into JVC’s Ultra High Definition TV cameras and stored in a Quvis HDTV box than can be networked with GigE. No optical zoom required. In a broadcast of a soccer game, for example, the entire field can be shot digitally in real time with the QuadHDTV sensor…and played back in “instant zoom replay”. Mount it on a Stratollite at 60,000 feet and watch everything, everywhere.
Video with a 1000 to 1 digital zoom with RF-ID tracking via the Safeway card.
Daily Wireless has more on 360 streaming video, H-264 In The Chips, MPEG-4 On The Move, Come out! We’ve got you surrounded!, Wireless Netcam Politics, Tagging Photos with GPS, Balloon Relays, and Picturephone Services.
