Take a good look around
"Spherical video" system offers 720-degree views of the world
By
DGRC Staff

iMove camera mounted in a military periscope.

• Military reconnaissance: The Office of Naval Research is exploring the use of iMove's spherical camera system on an unmanned submarine The pole-mounted spherical camera system is thrust out of a torpedo tube in shallow waters along the shore, where a sub cannot travel., then raised six feet above the waterline, where it begins shooting video. The video can be queried from the sub for weapons, buildings, enemy positions and other targets.
• Mapping: The U.S. Special Operations Command, which has been very active in Afghanistan, is trying out a spherical video mapping program. Essentially, someone driving into a new city, say, pops a spherical video camera out of the sunroof and records every street and alley. The video can be replayed on a handheld personal digital device, or on CD or DVD, wireless or wired, and overlaid with various graphical information systems tied to global positioning data. Possible applications include future mission rehearsal and plain navigation, Ripley says. Current mapping targets include U.S. embassies around the world, he adds.
  
  "The U.S. Embassy comes under attack, and everybody pulls out their CD or DVD that has the entire embassy captured, including the grounds outside of it," Ripley says. "It's a lot more useful than blueprints."
• Security: In extremely high-security locations, spherical camera systems can be used to exhaustively surveil the area. The video can then be computer tracked for intruders and other threats, Ripley says. "Let's say airport security discovers a bag with a gun, but the person who brought it in is already gone," Ripley said. "No problem, you go over to the display console, roll the video back until you spot who put the bag on the security belt., then roll forward and track the person to the current moment. Afterward, you can run the video in reverse and watch the person go back out, what car he got out of and the license number."
• Entertainment: George Lucas is looking into spherical video for location scouting, and James Cameron is considering spherical video for the DVD of his upcoming TV show Return to Titanic, Ripley said.

Stephen Bogner, research engineer at the Defense Research Establishment Suffield, near Medicine Hat, Alberta, is developing iMove technology for a next-generation armored vehicle prototype, he said. The Canadian defense department-funded project melds GPS and other GIS with panoramic video in an "immersive imaging system" that will transform battlefield navigation and tactical awareness, he added.

"In a tank or armored personnel carrier, the visual situation is very poor, particularly in combat when the hatches are down," said Bogner. "People were constantly getting lost , they never knew where they were. They were out there in the middle of the night, trying to read maps in the rain. It was a huge problem." Now, from any position within the tank, soldiers will be able to scan 360 degrees of vista on their computer screens, he said.

With the Mars videos, technicians were able to take their time to stitch multiple images into panoramas and transport them back to Earth. Soldiers, however, need instantaneous visual information.

"It wouldn't do any good to see images that are a half-second old," Bogner said. The real feat will be to make real-time transmission cheap enough for a real-world military budget.

"If cost were no object we could do this with arrays of equipment," Bogner said. Where the project really gets interesting, Bogner says, is in the area of graphically augmented virtual reality. Researchers are combining the spherical imagery with graphical overlays of tactical data to provide soldiers with precise roadmaps for battles. In place of the grease pencils that army grunts traditionally used to mark routes and targets, graphics will detail paths, obstacles and landmarks.

"When a soldier drives to an objective, he typically drives over phase lines with funny names, so as he crosses over the lines, he can radio, ÔI'm at crazy black cat now', for example," Bogner said. "Nos he'll see himself driving over a line as if it was painted on the ground, even though it is just rendered in a graphics way."

All friendly and enemy positions will show up as icons, Bogner added. Eventually, the entire battlefield is expected to be networked with access to both satellite and ground data, presenting soldiers with a package of integrated, easily assimilated information to help them do their jobs. "One of the advantages if you know where the enemy vehicles are, you can present the soldier with information relevant to the success of his mission, without overwhelming him with too much information," Bogner said. "What it means is you'll be able to delegate more authority down to soldiers, who will be able to draw on a much bigger range of resources."