Apparatus and methods for the optimal stitch zone calculation of a generated projection of a spherical image

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12205236-B2
Application number	US-202418632691-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 11, 2024
Priority date	Oct 10, 2016
Publication date	Jan 21, 2025
Grant date	Jan 21, 2025

Abstract

Apparatus and methods for the stitch zone calculation of a generated projection of a spherical image. In one embodiment, a non-transitory computer-readable apparatus comprising a storage apparatus, the storage apparatus comprising instructions configured to, when executed by a processor apparatus, cause a computerized apparatus to identify a stitch line associated with an equatorial area of a plurality of spherical images; re-orient the plurality of spherical images in accordance with the stitch line; and project the re-oriented plurality of spherical images to a selected image projection type.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A non-transitory computer-readable apparatus comprising a storage apparatus, the storage apparatus comprising instructions configured to, when executed by a processor apparatus, cause a computerized apparatus to:
determine a placement of a stitch line for a prescribed image projection;
adjust, according to the determined placement of the stitch line, an orientation of spherical images derived from fisheye images; and
arrange the adjusted spherical images with the prescribed image projection,
wherein the stitch line is located along a meridian plane associated with the spherical images.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further configured to, when executed by the processor apparatus, cause a computerized apparatus to:
obtain the fisheye images captured via image-capturing elements, the fisheye images comprising hyper-hemispherical images, the hyper-hemispherical images each having a field of view of greater than 180 degrees and being associated with one or more overlap areas, the one or more overlap areas configured to reduce discontinuity within a cubic projection.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the derivation of the spherical images from the fisheye images comprises a mapping of pixels associated with the fisheye images based on a Cartesian coordinate system or a spherical coordinate system.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further configured to, when executed by the processor apparatus, cause a computerized apparatus to select the prescribed image projection from projections.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the selected prescribed image projection comprises a cubic projection.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the selected prescribed image projection comprises an octahedron projection.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the prescribed image projection comprises image facets, and the stitch line traverses contiguous ones of the image facets.

8. A system comprising:
a processor apparatus; and
computerized logic executable by the processor apparatus, the computerized logic configured to:
determine a placement of a stitch line for a prescribed image projection;
adjust, according to the determined placement of the stitch line, an orientation of spherical images derived from fisheye images; and
arrange the adjusted spherical images with the prescribed image projection,
wherein the stitch line is located along a meridian plane associated with the spherical images.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the computerized logic is further configured to:
obtain the fisheye images captured via image-capturing elements, the fisheye images comprising hyper-hemispherical images, the hyper-hemispherical images each having a field of view of greater than 180 degrees and being associated with one or more overlap areas, the one or more overlap areas configured to reduce discontinuity within a cubic projection.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the derivation of the spherical images from the fisheye images comprises a mapping of pixels associated with the fisheye images based on a Cartesian coordinate system or a spherical coordinate system.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the computerized logic is further configured to select the prescribed image projection from a group of image projections.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the selected prescribed image projection comprises a cubic projection.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the selected prescribed image projection comprises an octahedron projection.

14. The system of claim 8 , wherein the prescribed image projection comprises image facets, and wherein the stitch line traverses contiguous ones of the image facets.

15. A method for generating an image projection, the method comprising:
determining a placement of a stitch line for a prescribed image projection;
adjusting, in accordance with the determined placement of the stitch line, an orientation of spherical images derived from fisheye images; and
arranging the adjusted spherical images with the prescribed image projection,
wherein the stitch line is located along a meridian plane associated with the spherical images.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:
obtaining the fisheye images captured via image-capturing elements, the fisheye images comprising hyper-hemispherical images, the hyper-hemispherical images each having a field of view of greater than 180 degrees and being associated with one or more overlap areas, the one or more overlap areas configured to reduce discontinuity within a cubic projection.

17. The method of claim 15 , wherein the derivation of the spherical images from the fisheye images comprises a mapping of pixels associated with the fisheye images based on a Cartesian coordinate system or a spherical coordinate system.

18. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:
selecting the prescribed image projection from projections.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the selected prescribed image projection comprises one of a cubic projection or an octahedron projection.

20. The method of claim 15 , wherein the prescribed image projection comprises image facets, and the stitch line traverses contiguous ones of the image facets.

Assignees

• Gopro Inc

Inventors

• Abbas Adeel
• Macmillan Timothy
• Douady-Pleven Cesar

Classifications

• G06T3/4038

  Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images · CPC title

• G06T3/14

  Transformations for image registration, e.g. adjusting or mapping for alignment of images · CPC title

• G06T3/12 Primary

  Panospheric to cylindrical image transformations · CPC title

• H04N23/698

  for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture · CPC title

• H04N23/45

  for generating image signals from two or more image sensors being of different type or operating in different modes, e.g. with a CMOS sensor for moving images in combination with a charge-coupled device [CCD] for still images · CPC title