Dual-band panoramic camera system
View Patent ↗A dual passband imaging system and method of assembly, use, and construction is disclosed. The imaging system locates a visible spectrum camera inside a parabolic mirror so as to be looking through a center hole within a flat mirror, and also locates a thermal spectrum camera to view the parabolic reflector through the center hole. A parabolic reflector is arranged to direct the exact same image-data toward the thermal spectrum camera and the visible spectrum camera.
1. A method of building a dual passband imaging system, comprising:
locating a visible spectrum camera inside a parabolic reflector so as to be looking through a center hole within a flat mirror;
locating a thermal spectrum camera to view the parabolic reflector through the center hole;
arranging the parabolic reflector to direct an exact same image-data toward both the thermal spectrum camera and the visible spectrum camera.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
positioning the visible-spectrum camera for collecting the image-data and generating a first focal plane;
positioning the infrared-spectrum camera for simultaneously collecting the same image-data and generating a second focal plane;
arranging that the first and second focal planes are exactly the same; and
combining both collections of image-data into a single annular image.
3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising applying a de-warping software to the combined annular image; and
forming a strip image from the annular image.
4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising
applying a de-warping software on only a visible spectrum annular image;
separately applying de-warping software on an IR-spectrum annular image.
5. The method of claim 3 , further comprising simultaneously performing the de-warping on the visible spectrum image and the IR-spectrum annular image.
6. The method of claim 4 , further comprising
separately locating the de-warping software within the visual-spectrum and IR-spectrum cameras using an embedded onboard module within each type of camera.
7. The method of claim 6 , the embedded onboard module comprising an FPGA (field-programmable gate array) processor.
8. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
configuring the system to project multiple spectrums to be simultaneously accessible along the same line of sight.
9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising wherein one of the spectrums is in the visible spectrum.
10. The method of claim 8 , further comprising wherein one of the spectrums is in the IR spectrum.
11. The method of claim 1 , the parabolic reflector further comprising an ambient temperature mirror.
12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
forming the parabolic reflector from aluminum.
13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
forming the reflecting mirror parabolic reflector from a chrome-plated substrate.
14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
forming the reflecting mirror parabolic reflector from a metal-based material that has low emissivity.
15. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
the parabolic reflector causing a change in linear scale in a vertical direction, thereby reducing processing steps in the transformation transforming from the annular image to the strip image.