Multimodal 3D panoramic imaging using a precise rotating platform

Both panoramic and multimodal imaging are becoming more and more desirable in applications such as wide area surveillance, robotics, mapping and entertainment. In this paper, we build a precise rotating platform to generate co-registered multimodal and multiview 3D panoramic images. The platform consists of a pair of color and thermal cameras that are mounted with their optical axes pointing away from the rotation center. As a result of the precisely controlled rotation of the platform, multiview panoramic mosaics of color and thermal images can be obtained using circular perspective projection. Furthermore, the mosaics of two modalities can be precisely aligned via the analysis of their geometric relationship. In order to estimate the parameters of the cameras needed for multimodal alignment, a calibration method that is very simple to implement is proposed based on the relationship of the distance and angle of a feature point coming in and out of the field-of-view of a camera. Experimental results for multiview and multimodal alignment of stereo panoramas are given.