Omni-Directional vision plays an important role in autonomous and remotely controlled vehicles providing the
critical ability of peripheral situational awareness. We introduce an omni-directional system which is able to build
a high resolution uniform panoramic image from four different wide angled cameras. In order to build a uniform
panoramic image, we developed a state of the art stitching algorithm using a variational optical flow estimation
methodology. Optical flow is traditionally considered as the apparent 2D image motion captured by a single
camera in different time samples. In this paper on the other hand, we consider optical flow as the 2D motion
registering the overlap regions of images taken from different cameras at the same time instant. Since the rigid
geometry between the cameras is fixed, the optical flow registering the different views is fixed for distant scenes.
We use this fact in order to formulate a functional which requires that the same optical flow registers properly
all the provided scene examples taken in the learning process. Our minimization functional incorporates in the
data term all the available information as provided by the scene examples. We mathematically show that the
variety of scene examples helps to overcome the aperture problem inherent in traditional optical flow problems.
We demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of our method on synthetic test cases and on real images captured
by our omni-directional commercial product.
Polarized light plays an important role in the underwater environment. Light that is scattered within the water is partially polarized. Biological and artificial systems can exploit this phenomenon. We aim to utilize this phenomenon in a new generation of
underwater imaging systems in order to partially compensate for the loss of color and visibility. In order to obtain quantitative measurement of radiance and polarization, the imaging system should have a linear radiometric response and low noise. In addition,
the interface of the camera with the water should have a minimum effect on the polarization. In this paper, we describe a portable lightweight imaging system that addresses these conditions. We detail the design considerations and empirical verifications.
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