DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

This 360° amphibious camera takes its optical design from the eyes of fiddler crabs

Aug 6, 2022 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

One of the big problems you encounter when moving a camera from dry land to under the water is the difference in the index of refraction (IOR). That’s the thing that often makes rivers and lakes appear much shallower than they actually are when you’re looking at them from the water’s edge. For 360° cameras, this difference in IOR can be a big problem when it comes to shifting from the air to underwater.

A team of researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), the Seoul National University and The University of Texas at Austin, though, have developed a system based on one of nature’s designs. They’ve taken inspiration from the fiddler crab to develop a 360° camera system that works both in and out of the water.

Details of the new camera system were published last month in Nature Electronics and it’s designed to give robots a 360-degree panoramic view of their surroundings, regardless of whether they’re in the water or out in the air. This lets them more easily see their surroundings to detect obstacles and navigate more easily. The need for such a camera is quite obvious, but the IOR differences between air and water make it difficult to seamlessly shift between the two.

This is why consumer 360° cameras like the Insta360 ONE X2 require the dive case when shooting underwater – regardless of the depth. It’s not that the camera isn’t waterproof (it is, to a depth of 10 metres), but the index of refraction difference means that the lenses (which were designed to shoot 360° in air) see things slightly differently and the normal stitching method does not work. The dive case attempts to rectify this, allowing the software to see and stitch the footage as it should.

Researcher Young Min Song spoke to TechXplore about the system and how it came to be.

Previous works, including our group’s research, on wide field of view (FoV) cameras were always at fewer than 180-degrees, which is not enough for the ‘full’ panoramic vision, and they were not suitable for changing external environments. We wanted to develop a 360-degree FoV camera that can image both in air and water.

– Young Min Song

The camera designed by the team is far more advanced than the simple dual lens and sensor setups of most consumer 360° cameras. This one contains a whole array of flat microlenses with very intricate designs to mimic the 3D omnidirectional view of the fiddler crab, which has evolved to be able to see as well on land as it can in the water in every direction at once to provide it with some distinct advantages trying to survive in the wild.

If you use a conventional lens with curvature for imaging, its focal point changes when you dip the lens into the water. On the other hand, if you use a lens with a flat surface, you can see a clear image regardless of ambient conditions. The fiddler crab living in the intertidal region has this kind of flat surface of its lens and we just imitated this crab-eye-lens.

– Young Min Song

It is believed to be the first time that such an amphibious 360° camera system has ever been demonstrated and could potentially pave the way for new 360° technologies for use with augmented reality or even autonomous vehicles. The team says that they plan to “conduct further engineering to achieve higher resolution and superior imaging performance”.

[TechXplore via PetaPixel]

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Sony takes us on a tour of its CMOS sensor design facility in Osaka First 360° VR Videos Recorded With Nikon’s KeyMission 360 Action Camera YI Technology jump into the 360° market with the new 5.7K YI 360 VR camera Insta360’s new Nano S 360° camera gets a 4K upgrade with 360° facetime and multiview video

Filed Under: news Tagged With: 360, 360 camera, 360 degree, GIST, IBS, MIT, SNU, technology, UTEXAS

John Aldred: from diyphotography.net

About John Aldred

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

« Instagram responds to video-focus backlash by testing portrait orientation photos in feeds
Spanish ministry in hot water over stolen images used for beach body ad campaign »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Comparing iPhone 13 vs iPhone 14 for astrophotography
  • Don’t buy a Z8 directly from Nikon, customers say
  • YouTube is killing off “Stories” to focus on Shorts and Live
  • Four ways to shoot epic stop motion hyperlapse with a smartphone gimbal
  • Canon reported to be working on a “zoomable” teleconverter

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy