A panomorph lens is a particular type of wide-angle lens specifically designed to improve optical performances in predefined zones of interest, or across the whole image, compared to traditional fisheye lenses. [1] [ predatory publisher ] Some examples of improved optical parameters include the number of pixels, the MTF or the relative illumination.
The term panomorph derives from the Greek words pan meaning all, horama meaning view, and morph meaning form.
The origin of panomorph technology dates back to 1999 from a French company named ImmerVision [2] now headquartered in Montreal, Canada. Since the first panomorph lenses have been used in video surveillance applications in the early 2000s, panomorph lenses are an improvement on existing wide-angle lenses in a broad range of applications.
Traditional wide-angle lenses have significant barrel distortion resulting from the compromise of imaging a wide field of view onto a finite, flat image plane; and non-uniform image quality due to the off-axis optical aberrations increasing with the field angle; and significant relative illumination falloff due to the cosine fourth illumination law. To improve the optical performances of the resulting images in predefined zones of interest or in the whole image, panomorph lenses can use one or many strategies at the optical design stage, including:
The zones of interest or whole image improvements resulting from using any of these design strategies in a given panomorph lenses enable improved optical performances compared to other traditional wide-angle lenses. [1] [ predatory publisher ]
No matter the strategies used to improve the performances in zones of interest, each panomorph lens is designed with specific parameters such as the object-to-image mapping function. Precise specifications of these design parameters for each panomorph lens is encoded in their unique RPL (Registered Panomorph Lens) code to allow de-warping algorithms to process the image and properly display the final image. The display is optimized to keep advantage of the improved performance in the zone of interest created by the panomorph lenses as opposed to algorithms for fisheye lenses which employ a linear mapping function to de-warp the image without any considerations for their departure from a perfect linear mapping ( distortion).
By providing wide-angle images with zones of interest, panomorph lenses are often designed with specific applications in mind. Panomorph lenses have already been used in various industries, [5] [6] including:
In photography, angle of view (AOV) describes the angular extent of a given scene that is imaged by a camera. It is used interchangeably with the more general term field of view.
A camera lens is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capable of storing an image chemically or electronically.
In photography and cinematography, a wide-angle lens refers to a lens whose focal length is substantially smaller than the focal length of a normal lens for a given film plane. This type of lens allows more of the scene to be included in the photograph, which is useful in architectural, interior, and landscape photography where the photographer may not be able to move farther from the scene to photograph it.
In optics, any optical instrument or system – a microscope, telescope, or camera – has a principal limit to its resolution due to the physics of diffraction. An optical instrument is said to be diffraction-limited if it has reached this limit of resolution performance. Other factors may affect an optical system's performance, such as lens imperfections or aberrations, but these are caused by errors in the manufacture or calculation of a lens, whereas the diffraction limit is the maximum resolution possible for a theoretically perfect, or ideal, optical system.
Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio, like the familiar letterbox format in wide-screen video.
A fisheye lens is an ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image. Fisheye lenses achieve extremely wide angles of view, well beyond any rectilinear lens. Instead of producing images with straight lines of perspective, fisheye lenses use a special mapping, which gives images a characteristic convex non-rectilinear appearance.
A digital single-lens reflex camera is a digital camera that combines the optics and the mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a solid-state image sensor and digitally records the images from the sensor.
In photography and optics, vignetting is a reduction of an image's brightness or saturation toward the periphery compared to the image center. The word vignette, from the same root as vine, originally referred to a decorative border in a book. Later, the word came to be used for a photographic portrait that is clear at the center and fades off toward the edges. A similar effect is visible in photographs of projected images or videos off a projection screen, resulting in a so-called "hotspot" effect.
In geometric optics, distortion is a deviation from rectilinear projection; a projection in which straight lines in a scene remain straight in an image. It is a form of optical aberration.
Optical resolution describes the ability of an imaging system to resolve detail, in the object that is being imaged. An imaging system may have many individual components, including one or more lenses, and/or recording and display components. Each of these contributes to the optical resolution of the system; the environment in which the imaging is done often is a further important factor.
Spectral imaging is imaging that uses multiple bands across the electromagnetic spectrum. While an ordinary camera captures light across three wavelength bands in the visible spectrum, red, green, and blue (RGB), spectral imaging encompasses a wide variety of techniques that go beyond RGB. Spectral imaging may use the infrared, the visible spectrum, the ultraviolet, x-rays, or some combination of the above. It may include the acquisition of image data in visible and non-visible bands simultaneously, illumination from outside the visible range, or the use of optical filters to capture a specific spectral range. It is also possible to capture hundreds of wavelength bands for each pixel in an image.
Optical proximity correction (OPC) is a photolithography enhancement technique commonly used to compensate for image errors due to diffraction or process effects. The need for OPC is seen mainly in the making of semiconductor devices and is due to the limitations of light to maintain the edge placement integrity of the original design, after processing, into the etched image on the silicon wafer. These projected images appear with irregularities such as line widths that are narrower or wider than designed, these are amenable to compensation by changing the pattern on the photomask used for imaging. Other distortions such as rounded corners are driven by the resolution of the optical imaging tool and are harder to compensate for. Such distortions, if not corrected for, may significantly alter the electrical properties of what was being fabricated. Optical proximity correction corrects these errors by moving edges or adding extra polygons to the pattern written on the photomask. This may be driven by pre-computed look-up tables based on width and spacing between features or by using compact models to dynamically simulate the final pattern and thereby drive the movement of edges, typically broken into sections, to find the best solution,. The objective is to reproduce the original layout drawn by the designer on the semiconductor wafer as well as possible.
A telecentric lens is a special optical lens that has its entrance or exit pupil, or both, at infinity. The size of images produced by a telecentric lens is insensitive to either the distance between an object being imaged and the lens, or the distance between the image plane and the lens, or both, and such an optical property is called telecentricity. Telecentric lenses are used for precision optical two-dimensional measurements, reproduction, and other applications that are sensitive to the image magnification or the angle of incidence of light.
The optical transfer function (OTF) of an optical system such as a camera, microscope, human eye, or projector specifies how different spatial frequencies are captured or transmitted. It is used by optical engineers to describe how the optics project light from the object or scene onto a photographic film, detector array, retina, screen, or simply the next item in the optical transmission chain. A variant, the modulation transfer function (MTF), neglects phase effects, but is equivalent to the OTF in many situations.
In digital photography, the image sensor format is the shape and size of the image sensor.
An ultra wide-angle lens is a lens whose focal length is shorter than that of an average wide-angle lens, providing an even wider view. The term denotes a different range of lenses, relative to the size of the sensor in the camera in question.
The design of photographic lenses for use in still or cine cameras is intended to produce a lens that yields the most acceptable rendition of the subject being photographed within a range of constraints that include cost, weight and materials. For many other optical devices such as telescopes, microscopes and theodolites where the visual image is observed but often not recorded the design can often be significantly simpler than is the case in a camera where every image is captured on film or image sensor and can be subject to detailed scrutiny at a later stage. Photographic lenses also include those used in enlargers and projectors.
Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is digital holography applied to microscopy. Digital holographic microscopy distinguishes itself from other microscopy methods by not recording the projected image of the object. Instead, the light wave front information originating from the object is digitally recorded as a hologram, from which a computer calculates the object image by using a numerical reconstruction algorithm. The image forming lens in traditional microscopy is thus replaced by a computer algorithm. Other closely related microscopy methods to digital holographic microscopy are interferometric microscopy, optical coherence tomography and diffraction phase microscopy. Common to all methods is the use of a reference wave front to obtain amplitude (intensity) and phase information. The information is recorded on a digital image sensor or by a photodetector from which an image of the object is created (reconstructed) by a computer. In traditional microscopy, which do not use a reference wave front, only intensity information is recorded and essential information about the object is lost.
The Sigma 8–16mm lens is an enthusiast-level, ultra wide-angle rectilinear zoom lens made by Sigma Corporation specifically for use with APS-C small format digital SLRs. It is the first ultrawide rectilinear zoom lens with a minimum focal length of 8 mm, designed specifically for APS-C size image sensors. The lens was introduced at the February 2010 Photo Marketing Association International Convention and Trade Show. At its release it was the widest viewing angle focal length available commercially for APS-C cameras. It is part of Sigma's DC line of lenses, meaning it was designed to have an image circle tailored to work with APS-C format cameras. The lens has a constant length regardless of optical zoom and focus with inner lens tube elements responding to these parameters. The lens has hypersonic zoom autofocus.
A scanning fiber endoscope is a technology that uses a flexible, small peripheral or coronary catheter to provide wide-field, high-quality, full-color, laser-based video imaging. These differences distinguish SFE applications from current imaging approaches such as IVUS and Intracoronary OCT. Applications for the device, are expected to include medical diagnosis and support in determining interventional treatments such as surgery or biopsy. Providing both full-color images and a wide-field, real-time surgical view into the inner depths of arteries, enables physicians to circumnavigate hard to reach internal tissues to assess for potential disease.
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