TORNADO: omnistereo video imaging with rotating optics

One of the key techniques for vision-based communication is omnidirectional stereo (omnistereo) imaging, in which stereoscopic images for an arbitrary horizontal direction are captured and presented according to the viewing direction of the observer. Although omnistereo models have been surveyed in several studies, few omnistereo sensors have actually been implemented. In this paper, a practical method for capturing omnistereo video sequences using rotating optics is proposed and evaluated. The rotating optics system consists of prism sheets, circular or linear polarizing films, and a hyperboloidal mirror. This system has two different modes of operation with regard to the separation of images for the left and right eyes. In the high-speed shutter mode, images are separated using postimage processing, while, in the low-speed shutter mode, the image separation is completed by optics. By capturing actual images, we confirmed the effectiveness of the methods.