Cylindrical panorama

1. A method for generating a panoramic image, comprising:

capturing images simultaneously from each of multiple camera sensors aligned horizontally along an arc and having an overlapping field of view;

performing a cylindrical projection to project each of the captured images from the multiple camera sensors to cylindrical images; and

aligning overlapping regions of the cylindrical images corresponding to the overlapping field of view based on absolute difference of luminance, wherein the cylindrical projection is performed by adjusting a radius for the cylindrical projection, wherein the radius is adjusted based on a scale factor and wherein the scale factor is calculated based on a rigid transform, and wherein the scale factor is iteratively calculated for two sensors from the multiple camera sensors.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein aligning the overlapping regions and adjusting the radius is performed as an integrated step.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein said integrated step is part of an iterated calibration process.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein a correction for lens distortion and the cylindrical projection is combined as a single reverse address map.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the single reverse address map is subsampled.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising performing seam cut energy measurement techniques on the cylindrical images.

7. The method 6 , further comprising using offset point to maintain a temporary stable seam across the cylindrical images.