FlyCam: Practical Panoramic Video

FlyCam provides real-time panoramic video by stitching together images from multiple video cameras pointed in different directions. Video images are digitally corrected for distortion, aligned, and seamlessly blended into a 360-degree full-motion panoramic view. Selecting a region of the panorama gives a "virtual camera" that can be electronically panned, tilted, and zoomed. Multiple, independent virtual cameras can be created allowing different users simultaneous different views of the same scene. FlyServer delivers motion panoramas to a web browser client via an http server. Virtual cameras can be automatically controlled using person tracking and image and sound analysis, enabling an "automatic cameraman" for unattended meeting and event capture. FountainCam is a FlyCam virtual window that provides outside views to a windowless conference room. The FlyAbout system provides photorealistic virtual reality from mobile FlyCam recordings.

FlyCam is now available in Japan as a product of Fuji Xerox New Business Center.

Here is a link to Kostas Danilidis' page with information about many other omnidirectional camera systems.

How does it work? This page describes how video images are composed to form a panorama.

Here's a paper describing more details of the FlyCam system. FlyCam: Practical Panoramic Video. Jonathan Foote, and Don Kimber In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo, vol. III, pp. 1419-1422, 2000., July 30, 2000 [PDF]

We have a number of additional publications relevant to FlyCam.

FlyCam Configurations:

• 2 cameras for 180-degree double-resolution video image

• 4 cameras through quad processor for 360-degree 1/4-resolution video image

Our most advanced 6-camera 360-degree full resolution system, used for FlyAbout: (click for full-size 3864x480 version)

The above as a QTVR image for those equipped with QuickTime.

Here's a Java applet that will let you pan and zoom around the above panoramic still image. (Note that the FlyCam system plays back video, not just still images).