Ball-camera that you toss in the air for a 360° panorama

Jonas Pfeil's "Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera" sports 36 cameras and contains firmware that stitches their output together to form a global panorama; you throw it into the air and at the top of its arc, it takes a snap and processes it.

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera // Jonas Pfeil [jonaspfeil.de]

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Gadgets • video • youtube

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jackbird

The bottom of those panos should be more entertaining than the usual distorted tripod legs…
HahTse

*WANT*
http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC

Interesting that the cameras don’t seem to be evenly distributed on the ball. I’d've expected 32 cameras in a face-centred truncated icosahedron arrangement.
http://twitter.com/uricacid W.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!
dculberson

Awesome idea and design. But it needs better sensors!! Pretty please?
millie fink

Yes, plz!

I like that song too–

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPd_rJZmvLc
stuck411

Too cool! Do I get extra points for envisioning this as part of a superhero’s arsenal? A golf ball sized camera that when thrown up could detect threats and send information back to our hero?
- http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC
  
  I was thinking that it might make a handy tactical sensor for the military. But they’d probably fit it with low-light-level TV, infra-red, stereoscopic sensors and the whole thing would weigh 200lbs and come with its own motorised transport and flinger/catcher mechanism.
Aknaton

Cory: Pfeil, not Pfiel.
http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

Oh lawks. How do people think of stuff like that? And then to actually go and make one. brain envy
- Susan Carley Oliver
  
  That’s ok, @lemoutan:disqus , you just have to watch the right kind of television! This lovely lovely is quite like the kino from Stargate:Universe.
  
  And plus one WANT please now thanks.
  
  @Warren_Terra:disqus , I’d work on that idea! It sounds immensely doable. Wouldn’t you love to see that helmet on someone like Danny McAskill? Yum.
Warren_Terra

Interesting, but I’d be more interested in a sort of personal streetview system. Imagine a multiple camera setup at head height on a tripod or a helmet, able to determine its orientation from a compass and able to determine its relative position as you move it through a property taking pictures. The relative position could be determined using inertial sensors, using image analysis to identify landmarks that have “moved” since the last image was taken, or using location referents placed by the user (the scale would probably be too fine for GPS, and the obvious uses would be indoors where GPS is unreliable). You could probably create such a system for not all that much money (too much to casually buy it, but little enough to rent it affordably) and then you could use it to create a streetview-like explorable virtual space from anyplace you wanted. Grandma’s house, for example, for the kids. Or, less cheerfully, document a crime scene. That, I’d love to see.
- David Carroll
  
  I was going to snark “Can I strap this to the top of my car”? but you sort of beat me to it. Using this camera as a personal StreetView system would be a great application. It could also be used by business who want to show off their space.
- Michael Polo
  
  For accidents on the highway at rush hour, spending less time documenting a crime scene translates into real productivity gains for those stuck in traffic.
thatbob

First, every posh home will have a dome room for projecting vacation slides and panoramic mood scenes. Coral reef and dolphin pod yoga centers will be the new rage. Can panoramic motion pictures be far behind?
- Guest
  
  I’m waiting for my holodeck.
http://www.commodorecrush.com/ Commodore Crush

Pretty cool, but the quality of the photos aren’t really any better than using Photosynth with an iPhone. I use it all the time. It’s amazing.
urbanspaceman

Artist Man Ray once made a short film by tossing his movie camera into the air.
abstract_reg

I want it, I want it, I want it!
Michael Polo

Reminded me of an idea that I had once where you could throw your camera up in the air so you could find out how far away the bus/streetcar was from your stop. Ah, the things you think up while waiting….
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

The possibilities are endless… build it inside the disco-ball, live feed to the internet… inside transparent beachball at a concert (or even the beach). Trailing from a weather balloon, from a kite. Shoot one from one of those t-shirt cannons. Rapid sequence shots to build 3d model.

But my mind keeps coming back to one thing…

Trebuchet!

(How can trebuchet not be in the spelling dictionary for chrome?)
- matisse
  
  File a bug!
  http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=2a2135b6f50fd524&hl=en
matisse

Want one on an RPV!
Marco Antonio Morales

I *swear* I’ve been talking about this for years as the ‘next step in photographing’… if you think of the evolution of photography from a pre-arranged setting and standing still posing – to ‘candid’ snapshots taken at will, and from a still ‘cropped’ image to the panoramic 360… the only way it made sense was to throw something up in the air that could catch the action instantaneously.

But this is also exactly the reason I’ve given up on writing sci-fi. Reality is catching up faster than I seem to be able to ‘dream up’ new stuff.

Kudos though – I love it that it’s finally happening! woop woop! :D
Sooper8

Here’s another plastic none recyclable thing we don’t need….
lutzray

This pedantic comment was missing:

That should be called a 4π steradian panorama, not a 360º panorama.

Boingboing snobby-points!
autark

the stitching is bad, and considering the state of other pano-cameras I expect video on this by now.
Alden

“Sorry sir, no photography allowed here. I’m going to have to take your ball away.”
Cowicide

This needs to be able to take 3 shots in quick succession, in 3 exposures for HDR. Otherwise, you’ll get pretty shabby VR’s unless it’s pretty cloudy.
- http://stephenrice.eu Stephen Rice
  
  Sure but I suspect the bracketed shots are likely to be slightly out of alignment.
oldtaku

Yikes, the white balance/color on those is HORRIBLE. Software needs to compensate for that a little better. Other than that, pretty damn cool.
norak

That’s a cool invention for sure.

On another note, does anyone know what the song at the end of the video is? I see that they’ve said what it is in the credits but I cannot find it anywhere online. Please help!