Non-frontal imaging camera

This thesis describes a Non-frontal Imaging Camera (NICAM) and applications of the NICAM in panoramic focused image acquisition and panoramic range estimation.; Standard cameras have sensor planes that are perpendicular to the optic axis. This causes sharp focus for parts of the scene that are all roughly at the same distance from the camera. When scene points are distributed over a range of distances from the sensor, creating a focused composite image involves changing some sensor parameters and obtaining a sequence of varying focus images. From this sequence a composite narrow view focused image for that view point can be created. This same process repeated for every view point will create a focused panoramic image. This process of mechanical motions (translation of sensor plane and panning of camera) and focus computations can be time intensive.; The NICAM has a sensor surface where different sensor surface points are at different distances from the lens. Depending upon where on the sensor surface the image of a scene point is formed (i.e., depending on the camera pan angle), the imaging parameter v will assume different values. This means that by controlling only the pan angle, we could achieve both goals of the traditional mechanical movements, namely, that of changing v values as well as that of scanning the visual field, in an integrated way.; "Depth of field" (DOF) refers to the possible variation in depth of a scene point that does not affect the quality of image focus. Expressions for "depth of field" are derived for the tilted NICAM, and by extension, the depth of field for an arbitrary pixel on an arbitrary sensor surface. The thesis shows that closed form symbolic solutions can be obtained for the depth of field by solving equations of degree 4.; The thesis also shows that rotating the standard camera about an axis through a point f (focal length) in front of the lens center, along the optical axis, minimizes the number of parameter changes required to create a panoramic focused image.; Experimental results on panoramic range estimation and focused image acquisition are also presented.