Imagine on your next outdoor adventure that you can simply throw a foam ball in the air and get a complete 360º panoramic shot of the scenery. The new Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera promises just that- full spherical panoramas taken instantly and requiring no preparation.
Creating your own panoramic pictures takes tons of time, from shooting the multiple images, to painstakingly stitching them together in post production. For his diploma thesis, Berlin Technical University student Jonas Pfeil set out to make panorama picture taking seamless and came up with the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera.
The ball camera uses 36 fixed-focus 2 megapixel phone camera modules. These camera modules are mounted inside a padded foam ball enclosure. An accelerometer is used to measure the launch acceleration and predict the highest point of the throw, where the exposure is then triggered.
Once you have taken your panoramic photo, you can download the pictures via USB and they are automatically shown in the accompanying spherical panoramic viewer. You can then explore the entire scene, even things behind and above you that you were not able to originally see.
Unfortunately, the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera is not available yet. Jonas is looking for an investor to help bring the camera to market. I am hoping he eventually starts a Kickstarter campaign as I can imagine a number of people, myself included, would be willing to pre-pay for our own Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera.