Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 4, April 2006, pp.

554563
Catadioptric Panoramic Lens with a Rectilinear Projection Scheme
Gyeong-Il Kweon

and Kwang Taek Kim

Department of Optoelectronics, Honam University, Gwangju 506-714
Young-Ho Choi
Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Honam University, Gwangju 506-714
Geon-Hee Kim and Sun-Cheol Yang
Ultra-precision Engineering Laboratory, Korea Basic Science Institute, Daejeon 305-333
(Received 26 December 2005)
The usefulness of a hyperbolic surface as a panoramic mirror has been investigated, and image
distortion was found to be dicult to eliminate and the optical parameters not easy to control.
The newly proposed panoramic mirror, based on a numerical analysis, is not a single viewpoint
imaging system. However, the eld of view can almost be arbitrarily chosen to suit the application
purpose, and the image distortion becomes increasingly small for far objects.
PACS numbers: 42.15.E, 42.79.B, 07.68
Keywords: Catadioptric lens, Panoramic mirror, Rectilinear projection, Lens design, Photography
I. INTRODUCTION
Reective optical elements are widely employed be-
cause of their distinctive advantages over the refractive
optical elements [1, 2]. Many interesting optical de-
vices combine reective and refractive optical elements.
Among them is a catadioptric panoramic lens, which is
a useful device for monitoring the full 360

surroundings
using a single camera [37]. As schematically shown in
Fig. 1, a typical catadioptric panoramic lens is composed
of a standard camera lens and a rotationally symmetric
panoramic mirror. The symmetry axis - same as the
z-axis in the gure - of the panoramic mirror coincides
with the optical axis of the camera. We will designate the
ray before the reection at the panoramic mirror as the
incident ray and the ray after the reection at the mir-
ror as the reected ray. The angle of the incident ray
is measured from the horizontal axis toward the zenith
(hereinafter referred as the altitude angle), and the angle
of the reected ray is measured as the zenith angle. In
other words, the reection angle is the angle subtended
by the positive z-axis and the reected ray.
As illustrated in the gure, an exemplary object point
P is at a horizontal distance D and a vertical height
H from the camera nodal point N. The nodal point is
the location of the pinhole in the pinhole camera model.
The shape of the mirror and the distance between the

E-mail: kweon@honam.ac.kr; Fax: +82-62-940-5005

panoramic mirror and the camera lens is such that an
incident ray from an object point P having an altitude
angle is reected at a point M on the panoramic mirror
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram illustrating the operational
principle of the catadioptric panoramic lens.
-554-
Catadioptric Panoramic Lens with a Rectilinear Projection Scheme Gyeong-Il Kweon et al. -555-
and passes through the nodal point N with a predeter-
mined zenith angle . The zenith angle of the mirror
point M is, thus, given as , and the radial distance from
the nodal point is designated as r(). The location of the
mirror point M can also be given in cylindrical coordi-
nates as a set of coordinate pairs (, z), where z is the
height measured along the symmetry axis and is the
axial radius (i.e., the horizontal distance measured per-
pendicular to the rotational symmetry axis). The vari-
ables in the two coordinates systems are related to each
other by a simple geometrical relation given as z() =
r()cos and () = r()sin. The tangent plane T to
the mirror at the mirror point M has an inclination an-
gle measured from the positive z-axis. Then, the law
of specular reections states that the inclination angle
is the arithmetic average of the zenith angles of the
incident and the reected rays as given by
=
+

2
. (1)
The reected ray having a zenith angle hits a pixel
in the image sensor I, which is mm away from the op-
tical axis. Because of the geometrical construction of
the catadioptric panoramic lens, scenes from full 360

surroundings are captured within an annular region in

the image sensor I, and this annular image can be sub-
sequently unwarped by using dedicated software.
Popular panoramic mirror proles include spheres,
cones, parabolas, hyperbolae, and more complex shapes
obtained by solving complex numerical equations.
Presently, the most preferred mirror shape has a hyper-
bolic surface (i.e., hyperboloid) because it allows an ef-
fective single viewpoint [8,9]. The purpose of the present
article is to reinvestigate the hyperbolic surface as a
panoramic mirror and to provide a possibly better mirror
prole suitable for panoramic imaging.
II. HYPERBOLOID AS A PANORAMIC
MIRROR
A hyperboloid is a rotationally symmetric three-
dimensional surface generated by rotating a hyperbolic
curve around the symmetry axis. As schematically
shown in Fig. 2, a hyperboloid having the symmetry
axis as the z-axis can be conveniently described in cylin-
drical coordinates as
z
2
a
2


2
b
2
= 1, (2)
where the constant a is the minimum height of the hy-
perboloid and b is the corresponding distance for the
conjugate hyperboloid. As schematically shown in the
gure, the hyperboloid described by Eq. (2) is tangen-
tial to a cone having a vertex at the coordinate origin
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of a hyperboloid used as a
panoramic mirror.
with the vertex half angle given as
max
= tan
1
(b/a).
The position of the rst focal point F of the hyperbola is
given as (0, c), and the position of the second focal point
F is given as (0, c), where the constant c is given as
c =

a
2
+ b
2
.
As has been stated previously, an ideal camera lens can
be mathematically considered as a pinhole. Therefore,
system analysis will be simpler by resorting to spherical
coordinates with the coordinate origin lying at the pin-
hole position. When a hyperboloidal mirror is used as a
panoramic mirror, the location of the pinhole (i.e., the
nodal point) should coincide with the second focal point
F, and the hyperbolic mirror prole given in Eq. (2) is
reduced to
r() =
l
1 e cos
, (3)
where the two constants are given as
e =

1 +
b
2
a
2
(4)
and
l =
b
2
a
. (5)
However, from the viewpoint of an optical system
designer, the most relevant parameters of the hyper-
boloid are the minimum working distance W and the
vertex half-angle
max
. The minimum working distance,
W a + c, is the distance between the nodal point and
the lowest point on the mirror. This is important be-
cause every lens has a lower limit on the object distance
for a sharp focus. For the vertex half-angle, the maxi-
mum zenith angle of the reected ray (i.e., the eld of
-556- Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 4, April 2006
view) asymptotically approaches
max
. Therefore, it is
necessary to express the two parameters in Eqs. (4) and
(5) in terms of W and
max
. After some algebra, it can
be found that
a =
cos
max
1 + cos
max
W, (6)
b =
sin
max
1 + cos
max
W, (7)
c =
W
1 + cos
max
, (8)
e =
1
cos
max
, (9)
and
l = W tan
max
tan

max
2
. (10)
III. DISTORTION IN THE PANORAMIC
IMAGE
One of the most important characteristics of a
panoramic mirror is the accompanying image distortion.
Almost all of the articial image sensors, such as CCD
and CMOS sensors, have a planar structure. The dis-
tance between the camera nodal point and the image
sensor is close to the nominal camera focal length f.
Therefore, a reected ray having a zenith angle will
hit a pixel in the image sensor that is = f tan mm
away from the optical axis. For an object point P that
is D mm away from the optical axis, the height H of the
object point is related to the incidence angle and the
mirror prole by
H = z + (D ) tan. (11)
For a vertically extended object to appear distortion
free, the pixel distance should be a linear function of the
object height H. If the object height H corresponding to
a particular pixel in the image sensor is to be calculated,
the incidence angle corresponding to the reection an-
gle should be known. For the hyperbolic mirror prole
given in Eq. (3), the horizontal distance and the ver-
tical height z corresponding to a mirror point r() are
given as r()sin and r()cos, respectively. Therefore,
the mirror prole can also be expressed in cylindrical
coordinates. Then, the inclination angle can be calcu-
lated as
= tan
1

d
dz

, (12)
and the incidence angle can be calculated using Eq. (1)
as
= +

2
2. (13)
Fig. 3. Altitude angle of the incident rays (curve a) and
the inclination angle of the tangent plane to the mirror
(curve b) as functions of the zenith angle of the reected
rays for an exemplary hyperbolic surface used as a panoramic
mirror.
Finally, the corresponding objects height H can be cal-
culated using Eq. (11).
The hyperbola belongs to a family of conic surfaces.
Since the hyperbola is a highly specialized form of curves,
all the relevant parameters are intertwined together.
As an example, for the hyperbolic mirror schematically
shown in Fig. 2, the upper limit of the zenith angle
the reected ray can take is identical to the vertex half
angle
max
. This is also the lower limit of the zenith an-
gle the incident ray can take (i.e.,
max
= /2
max
).
Needless to say, a hyperboloid is a surface that extends
to innity. However, an actual panoramic mirror can-
not be innitely large; therefore, the hyperboloid should
be trimmed to have a reasonable axial radius, and the
maximum reection angle
2
will be smaller than
max
.
In this numerical consideration, a hyperboloid is chosen
having a minimum working distance W of 100 mm and
a vertex half-angle
max
of 40

. Then, the region of the

hyperboloid with zenith angles less than
2
= 25

has
been chosen as our exemplary panoramic mirror. Curves
a (solid curve) and b (dotted curve) in Fig. 3 are the
calculated incidence angle and the inclination angle ,
respectively.
For the lower end of the reection angle, the incident
rays reected near the center of the hyperbola originated
from an object point far below the horizon. Hence, the
central portion is of a lesser interest as a panoramic mir-
ror. Therefore, the central portion can also be cutaway or
simply neglected in the image processing. Taken together
with the upper limit, three pairs of angles are important
in the panoramic mirror design, namely (
1
,
1
), (
2
,
2
),
and (
max
,
max
), where (0 <
1
<
2
<
max
< /2)
and (/2 <
1
<
2
<
max
< /2).
Fig. 4 shows the actual traces of the incident and the
reected rays for object points D = 100 mm away from
the optical axis. For the reected rays, pixel distances
Catadioptric Panoramic Lens with a Rectilinear Projection Scheme Gyeong-Il Kweon et al. -557-
Fig. 4. Exemplary hyperbolic surface used as a panoramic
mirror and the trajectories of the incident and the reected
rays. The trajectories of the incident rays are extended be-
yond the mirror surface until they meet the optical axis.
corresponding to
1
= 5

and
2
= 25

are uniformly
divided into 10 positions (i.e., =
i
for i = 1 10).
Then, the corresponding reection angles are calculated
as
i
= tan
1
(
i
/f). The corresponding incidence angles

i
and the object point heights H
i
have been calculated
from Eq. (13) and Eq. (11), respectively. The traces of
the incident rays are further extended beyond the mir-
ror surface until they meet the optical axis. As is clear
from the gure, all the reected rays reaching the camera
nodal point located at the second focal point F would
converge to a single point (the focal point F) if it were
not for the mirror surface. Therefore, a hyperbolic mir-
ror really constitutes a single viewpoint imaging system.
Despite the above-mentioned merit of single viewpoint
geometry, it can be noticed that the vertical intervals
between the incident rays are not uniform while the hor-
izontal intervals between the reected rays are uniform.
This is a sign of image distortion. Fig. 5 shows the nor-
malized pixel distance (i.e., the tangent of the reection
angle) versus the object point height H for horizontal dis-
tances D = 100 mm (solid curve) and D = 1000 mm (dot-
ted curve). For a vertically extended object to appear
distortion free, the curves should be straight lines. Fur-
thermore, the shapes of the curves for the two horizontal
distances are almost identical to each other. Therefore,
the distortion is hardly alleviated by a larger distance
from the imaging system, and it can be concluded that
despite the single viewpoint geometry, the hyperboloid
as a panoramic mirror induces an image distortion that
is rather persistent.
Fig. 5. Normalized pixel distance versus the corresponding
object point height H for horizontal object distances D of 100
mm (solid curve) and 1000 mm (dotted curve). An image
distortion exists wherever the curve is not a straight line.
IV. PANORAMIC MIRROR PROFILE WITH
A RECTILINEAR PROJECTION
SCHEME
Besides the image distortion, conic surfaces have sev-
eral drawbacks as panoramic mirrors. For example,
the ranges of the incident and the reected rays for
panoramic mirrors need to be separately controlled. The
maximum zenith angle
2
of the reected ray is deter-
mined by the eld of view (FOV) of the refractive lens
employed in the catadioptric optics. The maximum al-
titude angle
2
of the incident ray, however, needs to
be determined by the intended application area of the
panoramic lens. If it is to be used in military aerial
surveillance, for example, the maximum altitude angle

2
of the incident ray should be considerably larger. On
the other hand, if it is to be used in trac control or
security monitoring of grounds, then the maximum alti-
tude angle
2
should be smaller so that the panoramic
imaging system focuses on the area below the horizon.
In the other direction, the minimum zenith angle
1
of the reected ray for the conic surface cannot be sepa-
rately controlled from the minimum altitude angle
1
of
the incident ray. The minimum altitude angle
1
of the
incident ray should be chosen once again according to the
intended application of the panoramic lens. However, the
minimum zenith angle
1
of the reected ray is tied to
the minimum altitude angle
1
of the incident ray for a
given conic surface. However, if
1
is too small, then the
perimeter of the circle in the image sensor having that
zenith angle will be too small. This means that objects
in the panoramic surroundings having the minimum in-
cidence angle will be represented by a small number of
pixels, and the unwarped image will be low in resolu-
tion. If
1
is too large (i.e.,
1

2
), on the other hand,
then there will be a large number of unused pixels in the
image sensor, and the annular region of the image sen-
-558- Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 4, April 2006
sor receiving the reected rays will be too thin in width.
This means than the unwarped image will be too low
in pixel height. Therefore
1
and
2
should have proper
values separate from
1
and
2
, a dicult task for conic
surfaces.
In another perspective, ordinary refractive lenses, such
as standard, telephoto, wide-angle, and Fisheye (i.e., ex-
treme wide-angle) lenses, can be purchased with a variety
of FOVs. However, it is dicult to design conic-surface-
based panoramic mirrors having desired vertical FOVs.
These problems can be completely solved by resorting
to a new method of panoramic mirror design based on
numerical analysis.
Fig. 1 shows the relevant variables needed in analyzing
the proposed panoramic mirror prole. Unlike the hyper-
boloid, the panoramic mirror of the current design has
a non-mirrored region around the symmetry axis. This
non-mirrored region exists as a circular hole around the
center of the panoramic mirror. The origin of the co-
ordinate system coincides with the camera nodal point,
and the line of sight of the camera is along the posi-
tive z-axis. Due to its rotationally symmetric structure,
the mirror prole is degenerate about the azimuth an-
gle; therefore, a set of (r, ) or (, z) is sucient for
a complete description of the mirror prole. Since the
polar angle is unique for every point on the mirror,
the radial distance r can be parameterized in terms of
(i.e., r = r()). Therefore, becomes the independent
variable, and becomes the dependent variable. By a
similar argument, the mirror prole can be alternatively
given as z = z(). Due to the presence of the central
non-imaging region, the range of the polar variable has
a lower and an upper limit denoted as
1
and
2
(i.e.,

1

2
), respectively. The corresponding inner and
outer diameters of the mirror surface are given as 2
1
and 2
2
(
1
<
2
), respectively. Careful examination
of the geometrical structure shows that the panoramic
mirror prole can be given in the form of an indenite
integral given as
r() = r(
i
) exp

i
sin

+ cot (

) cos

cos

cot (

) sin

, (14)
where
i
is the lower bound of the indenite integral [6,
7].
i
is usually chosen between
1
and
2
, although it is
not limited to this range.
To evaluate the integration given in Eq. (14), one
must know the functional relation between the inclina-
tion angle and the polar angle (i.e., the zenith angle
of the reected rays). The functional form of is not
arbitrary, however, because the constraint is given from
the law of specular reections given in Eq. (1). Once we
know (), then from Eq. (13), we automatically know
the zenith angle = () for the incident ray. In other
words, by specifying the functional form of (), we are
specifying the projection scheme (i.e., versus ) for the
panoramic lens.
In the design of a panoramic mirror, we rst decide
on the ranges of the incident rays (
1

2
) and the
Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of a globe-shaped virtual screen
in the equidistance projection scheme. An equal increase in
the latitude angle on the virtual screen corresponds to an
equal increase in the pixel distance from the image center.
reected rays (
1

2
). For the valid range of the
reection angle , the incidence angle is determined to
have a desirable functional form given as = (). Then,
the inclination angle of the tangent plane T to the mir-
ror is determined using Eq. (1). Finally, the inclination
angle is given as a sole function of the reection angle
and can be supplied to Eq. (14) to yield the desired
mirror prole.
The panoramic mirror prole can be generated for an
arbitrary functional form of (). However, two projec-
tion schemes are considered superior to the rest of the
schemes. One is the equidistance projection scheme, and
the other is the rectilinear projection scheme. Fig. 6
illustrates the equidistance projection scheme. An ob-
server or a panoramic camera is situated at the origin
of a rectangular coordinate system. Let the x-axis run
from West to East, and the y-axis from South to North.
Then, the ground plane coincides with the x-y plane,
and the z-axis runs from the nadir to the zenith. A
suciently large globe centered at the origin is further
assumed, which is much like a celestial sphere. Then, the
part of the globe having altitude angles (i.e., latitude
angles) between
1
and
2
constitutes a virtual screen
for the equidistance projection scheme. In Fig. 6,
1
is
60

(i.e., 60

south) and
2
is +60

(i.e., 60

north).
By denition, a panoramic camera is a device that cap-
tures the virtual screen for every horizontal direction.
In other words, the camera is simultaneously seeing all
longitudinal directions. A schematic diagram of a cap-
tured panoramic image is shown in Fig. 7. An unwarped
panoramic image occupies an annular region on the im-
age sensor. Also, a panoramic camera having an equidis-
tance projection scheme captures a constant interval in
the altitude angle as a constant radial interval in the im-
age sensor. Since man-made image sensors are planar in
structure, the incidence angle in the equidistance projec-
tion scheme should be proportional to the tangent of the
Catadioptric Panoramic Lens with a Rectilinear Projection Scheme Gyeong-Il Kweon et al. -559-
Fig. 7. Schematic diagram of an unwarped panoramic im-
age either in the equidistance projection scheme or the rec-
tilinear projection scheme. An equal increase in the pixel
radius corresponds to an equal increase in the latitude angle
for the equidistance projection scheme and to an equal in-
crease in the vertical distance (i.e., height) for the rectilinear
projection scheme.
reection angle (i.e., () = c tan, where c is a con-
stant). Therefore, if the ranges of the incident and the
reected ray angles are considered, the incidence angle
is given as a function of the reected ray angle as
() =
(
2

1
)
(tan
2
tan
1
)
(tan tan
1
) +
1
. (15)
As in the case of sheye lenses, the equidistance projec-
tion scheme is suitable when the vertical eld of view is
larger than or a pole (zenith or nadir) needs to be cap-
tured in the image. As a matter of fact, high-end sheye
lenses also follow an equidistance projection scheme. In
this case, however, both angles are measured from the
zenith, and the lower ends of the angles are all zero (i.e.,

1
=
1
= 0). Deviation from this equidistance projec-
tion scheme is called as the f- distortion and considered
as one of the most important qualiers for sheye lenses.
When the vertical eld of view is relatively small and
does not need to capture any pole, then the rectilinear
projection scheme can yield a visually more pleasing re-
sult. Fig. 8 shows a virtual screen associated with the
rectilinear projection scheme. The virtual screen has the
shape of a large cylinder with the symmetry axis coin-
ciding with the z-axis. A panoramic camera having a
rectilinear projection scheme captures a constant inter-
val in the height on the virtual screen (not the altitude
angle!) into a constant interval in the corresponding pixel
radius of the image sensor. In this scheme, the tangent of
the incidence angle is proportional to the tangent of the
reection angle [10]. Considering the ranges of the inci-
Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of the virtual screen in the
rectilinear projection scheme.
dent and the reected rays, the incidence angle is given
as a function of the reected ray angle as
() = tan
1

(tan
2
tan
1
)
(tan
2
tan
1
)
(tan tan
1
) + tan
1

. (16)
In the rectilinear projection scheme, captured objects
have the correct proportions matching the proportions
of the real objects. In fact, the rectilinear projection
scheme is the most familiar projection scheme because
the majority of camera lenses follow the rectilinear pro-
jection scheme. The camera lenses, however, follow the
rectilinear projection scheme in both the x- and the y-
directions, while a panoramic lens with the rectilinear
projection follows the rectilinear projection scheme only
in the vertical direction. The horizontal direction follows
the equi-angular projection scheme in the strictest sense
of the word.
For a panoramic camera, it is best to have a square
image sensor, as has been illustrated in Fig. 7. However,
most of the cameras have image sensors where the widths
are larger than the heights. The width-to-height ratio
for a NTSC-type TV monitor is 4 : 3, and the matching
CCD image sensor is 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high.
A wide screen TV can have a width-to-height ratio of
16 : 9.
Therefore, for a non-dedicated camera, the image sen-
sor is assumed to be as X millimeters wide and Y mil-
limeters high, and the distance from the camera nodal
point N to the image sensor I is f millimeters long. Then,
the vertical eld of view of the camera is given as

V
= tan
1

Y
2f

. (17)
As has been said, the width X is larger than the height Y
for most electronic image sensors. Therefore, rays having
a polar angle larger than
V
will be cropped out by the
boundaries of the image sensor. If a complete circle is
-560- Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 4, April 2006
Fig. 9. Tangent of the incidence angle versus the tangent
of the reection angle for the proposed panoramic mirror.
The straightness of the curve is a sign of the rectilinear pro-
jection scheme.
to be formed in the image sensor, the largest angle of
reections
2
must be smaller than
V
.
V. EXPERIMENTS
The camera we have chosen for the experiment is a
Canon EOS 300D. It has a CMOS image sensor that mea-
sures 22.7 mm wide and 15.1 mm high. The dedicated
camera lens (EF-S 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6) has a longest
focal length of 55 mm. When the camera is used with
the narrowest eld of view - hence with the longest focal
length - the vertical eld of view is 7.82

. Allowing some
safety margin, we have chosen
2
as 7

, and
1
has been
arbitrarily chosen as 3

. For the range of the incident

rays, the minimum altitude angle
1
is chosen as 70

,
and the maximum altitude angle
2
is chosen as 50

. The
minimum working distance has been chosen as 200 mm.
Fig. 9 shows the tangent of the incidence angle
versus the tangent of the reection angle following the
rectilinear projection scheme. Curves a (solid curve) and
b (dotted curve) in Fig. 10 are the calculated incidence
angle () and the inclination angle (), respectively.
Fig. 11 shows the panoramic mirror prole obtained us-
ing Eq. (14) with the chosen design parameters. In the
numerical integration,
1
has been chosen as the lower
bound of the integral (i.e.,
i
=
1
). Since the minimum
working distance W = z
1
= z(
1
) is chosen to be 200
mm, then r(
i
) = r(
1
) is given as r(
1
) = z(
1
)/cos
1
.
Fig. 12 shows the actual traces of the incident and the
reected rays for objects points D = 100 mm away from
the optical axis. The traces of the incident rays are fur-
ther extended beyond the mirror surface until they meet
the optical axis. As is clear from the details given in
Fig. 12(b), this panoramic mirror does not constitute
a single viewpoint imaging system. However, it can be
Fig. 10. Altitude angle of the incident rays (curve a)
and the inclination angle of the tangent plane to the mirror
(curve b) as functions of the zenith angle of the reected
rays for the proposed panoramic mirror.
Fig. 11. Prole of the proposed panoramic mirror.
noticed that the vertical intervals between the incidence
rays and the horizontal intervals between the reected
rays are nearly uniform. Fig. 13 shows the tangent of
the reection angle versus the object point height H for
horizontal distances D = 100 mm (solid curve) and D
= 1000 mm (dotted curve). For a vertically extended
object to appear distortion free, the curve should be a
straight line. For the case of D = 100 mm, a slight bow
can be noticed. However, it is hard to tell the curve
for D = 1000 mm from a straight line. Therefore, the
image distortion is less severe compared to the case of
the hyperbolic mirror, and the image distortion becomes
increasingly small for far objects.
Fig. 14 shows the inverted mirror prole convenient
from the viewpoint of a machine-shop engineer. h is the
inverted mirror height given as h() = max(z()) z().
The mirror is fabricated from Al6061-T6 by using an
ultra-precision machining tool called the Nanoform 600.
One of the most important uses of ultra-precision ma-
chining tools is in aspheric lens fabrication. Therefore,
machining tools recognize typical lens formulas, such as
the even aspheric lens formula given as
h() =
c
2
1 +

1 (1 + k)c
2

2
+A
4
+ B
6
+ C
8
+ D
10
+ (18)
Catadioptric Panoramic Lens with a Rectilinear Projection Scheme Gyeong-Il Kweon et al. -561-
Fig. 12. Calculated ray trajectories for the panoramic mirror in Fig. 11. The details in Fig. 12(b) show that this panoramic
mirror does not constitute a single viewpoint imaging system.
Fig. 13. Normalized pixel distance versus the correspond-
ing object point height H for horizontal object distances D
of 100 mm (solid curve) and 1000 mm (dotted curve) for the
proposed panoramic mirror. For a modest distance of 1 m,
it is dicult to tell the curve from a straight line, indicating
that image distortion is practically absent.
Even aspheric lens formula is composed of two parts.
The rst part on the right-hand side (RHS) of Eq. (18)
is the conic surface prole, where c is the vertex cur-
vature and k is the conic constant. Depending on the
value of the conic constant, the rst part can describe a
sphere, an ellipse, a parabola, a hyperbola, and an oblate
sphere. The second part on the RHS of Eq. (18) de-
scribes the deviation of the aspheric lens prole from the
conic surface. This even aspheric lens formula presumes
Fig. 14. Inverted mirror prole, which is more convenient
from the viewpoint of a machine-shop engineer.
that the aspheric lens prole is basically a conic surface
with possible minor deviations. However, expansion of
an arbitrary surface prole in this form is sometimes next
to impossible, because expansion in this form is neither
orthogonal nor complete. Therefore, the same surface
prole can be tted with dierent combinations of the
expansion coecients. For our case, the mirror prole
cannot be even poorly tted with this formula.
A more general form of the even aspheric lens formula
is the odd aspheric lens formula, where odd powers of
-562- Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 4, April 2006
Fig. 15. Residual errors after tting the inverted mirror
prole as a polynomial in .
Fig. 16. Photograph of the fabricated panoramic mirror
with a rectilinear projection scheme. The vertical eld of
view is as wide as 120

.
are allowed as given in Eq. (19):
h() =
c
2
1 +

1 (1 + k)c
2

2
+

i=1
C
i

i
. (19)
If the vertex curvature c is set equal to zero, this odd
aspheric lens formula is reduced to polynomials in . We
have tted the inverted mirror prole with a 7
th
-order
polynomials in :
h() =
7

i=0
C
i

i
. (20)
Table 1 shows the ranges of the axial radius and the
best-tted polynomial coecients. Fig. 15 shows the
residual errors between the actual prole and the tted
prole. The tting error is less than 10 m over the
Fig. 17. Exemplary panoramic image taken using the
panoramic mirror along with a digital camera.
Table 1. Polynomial coecients of the tted mirror prole.

1
1.048156e + 1

2
2.607219e + 1
C
0
8.271760e + 1
C
1
2.899552e + 1
C
2
5.035133e + 0
C
3
4.726471e 1
C
4
2.564981e 2
C
5
7.989937e 4
C
6
1.306703e 5
C
7
8.590620e 8
whole range of axial radii. Since the mirror is relatively
far away from the refractive lens, this error shouldnt
cause any problem. Nevertheless, we have generated the
mirror prole in a set of coordinate pairs (, h) for ev-
ery micrometer increment in the axial radius. Then, the
mirror prole is generated by simply connecting the co-
ordinate pairs sequentially. Because of the nite tip size
of the bite, the machined mirror prole is smooth.
Fig. 16 shows the completed panoramic lens. The
mirror is connected to the optical window of the cylin-
drical barrel by using a thin metal post. The cylindrical
barrel has a thread at the lower end that matches the
lter thread of the camera lens barrel. Fig. 17 shows a
sample picture of the university post oce taken using
the panoramic lens. For this purpose, the optical axis of
the imaging system is aligned perpendicular to the oor
by using a level. Fig. 18 shows the unwarped image us-
ing one type of a commercial unwarping software. The
completed panoramic lens corresponds to a wide-angle
lens because the vertical eld of view is as wide as 120

.
Therefore, the object distances are greatly exaggerated.
Catadioptric Panoramic Lens with a Rectilinear Projection Scheme Gyeong-Il Kweon et al. -563-
Fig. 18. Panoramic image in Fig. 17 after the polar-to-rectangular transformation.
The front bar looks greatly bowed, albeit it is actually a
straight built-in desk running across the room. Although
straight in Cartesian coordinates, it is a curved object in
cylindrical coordinates. As has been illustrated in Fig. 8,
a panoramic image can be considered as a projection of
panoramic scenes onto a cylindrical screen surrounding
the imaging system. Therefore, the desk looks bowed, as
it should, which should not be considered as another dis-
tortion. It is mathematical in nature. However, if a user
chooses a viewing direction, the East for example, then a
portion of the image near the East can be projected onto
a hypothetical planar screen behind the cylindrical vir-
tual screen by using dedicated software. Then, the image
will be similar to the familiar planar image we are used
to. Note that this software processing is useless unless a
particular viewing direction is chosen. When used with
a video camera instead of a still camera, a similar set-up
can be advantageously used in security and surveillance
and virtual touring.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, we have examined the usefulness of a
hyperboloid as a panoramic mirror and found that the
image distortion is persistent. Therefore, it is not as
good as it has been thought to be. The newly proposed
panoramic mirror is not a single-viewpoint imaging
system. However, the eld of view can be almost
arbitrarily chosen to suit the purpose, and the image
distortion becomes increasingly small for far objects.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was partly supported by grant No. RTI04-
03-03 from the Regional Technology Innovation Program
of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MO-
CIE).
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