Low-cost 360 Camera

I want to use a simple camera for SLAM with ROS. The way to increase camera coverage without increasing the number of cameras is to change the viewing angle of the camera. so that it collects an image for 360 deg around the camera. There are a number of cameras that can do this, but they cost a lot more than I can afford. I have came up with a low-cost solution for hopefully achieving similar results.

For some time in the past I had searched for an answer to this problem. I imagined using a mirror finished ball-shaped Christmas tree ornament mounted above a camera to transform the camera into an outwards 360 deg camera. Unfortunately, I could not find any that had a finish that would reflect without losing lots of image resolution. Then I thought maybe a flashlight reflector turned upside-down and the camera pointing through the hole with a flat mirror pointing back down. Like the time before, nothing I could find resulted in acceptable results.

I had almost given up on this idea until one day, at a local retail store there were some led camping lanterns. The lanterns were only five dollars each. The lanterns are made with a parabolic mirror in the top to spread the light outwards from the lantern. I knew that was what I needed to make the camera shoot 360 images or videos.

I played with it in the store an noticed that the top portion was designed to come apart from the base.

Please excuse the grainy picture.

Here is the parabolic mirror set upside-down, so you can see the nice mirror finish and the conical/parabolic shape that I wanted.

I have designed and 3d printed a coupler to attach an old standard definition Cannon camera I had sitting around (I hope to use a standard definition camera that is designed to be powered and communicated with over USB with a faster frame rate).

And it seems to work! The print is a bit ugly, that is due to it being one of my first practices with ABS and the poor calibration of the delta machine. Of course the final version will act as a mount for the camera so the whole unit can be easily mounted.

8/9/17