An introduction to panospheric imaging

A general imaging technology which is able to capture and present substantially spherical fields of view has been developed, and a new discipline known as panospheric imaging (PI) has been recognised. PI is a technology which allows a substantially spherical field-of-view to be captured, digitally processed, and presented to an observer in the form of a fully immersive spherical perspective image, in both still and full motion video formats. This technology greatly simplifies the process of acquiring and presenting panoramic and immersive still images, and offers for the first time a practical technology for true panoramic and panospheric full motion video. PI has become feasible because of a number of separate advances, including the development of appropriate optics, the emergence of a general digital image remapping capability able to correct even severely distorted images, and the availability of wide angle virtual reality (VR) headsets with head orientation sensing, which provide an appropriate device for viewing such images.