A Compact Robotic Head for Automatic Acquisition of Indoor Panoramic Images

Indoor exploration based on panoramic images has been of interest in both navigation and visualization scenarios of mobile intelligent systems, becoming an appealing research topic in hardware design and computational algorithms. A detailed profile of an indoor scene further used for 3D reconstruction purposes or visualization requires an accurate high-resolution rendering from multiple camera shots. In panoramic imaging, 360 degree Gigapixel panoramas involve a process of capturing multiple segments at a predefined step according to the physical and optical characteristics of the camera (focal length, field of view, angle of view). Manual shooting in such scenes becomes cumbersome, as high precision and stability is required for prolonged time. The current work, proposes a hardware implementation and software control of a panoramic robotized head (GoSphere), used to automatically capture panoramic segments, that further are to be stitched into panoramic renderings. The proposed model features a light-weight portable design for action cameras, allowing a two axes control for a 360 x 180 degree coverage of the scene. Experimental validation has been made in comparison with a standard panoramic capturing assembly. Limitations and improvement proposals are presented for further development and extensions.