A New Class of Mirrors for Wide-Angle Imaging

Conventional mirrors for panoramic imaging usually capture circular images. As these images are difficult to interpret visually, they are often remapped digitally into a rectangular image in which one axis represents azimuth and the other elevation. This paper describes a class of mirrors that perform the capture as well as the remapping, thus eliminating the need for computational resources. They provide uniform resolution in azimuth and elevation, and can be designed to make full use of a camera's imaging surface.