Comments on: Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera has us seeing spherical potential

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 06:04:00 +0000

Cool effect, basically a poor man’s Google Street View!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 23:09:00 +0000

Exactly. Forget throwing; just hang it from your ceiling and have it take shots every hour or few minutes and you’re good to go.

Decorate the thing and people will put this up at ALL special occasions.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 23:08:00 +0000

When the accelerometer in the ball records an acceleration of 0?

The only problem is that you can’t throw it with a spin as that would blur all of your shots; and you can’t throw it at an angle (I’m assuming) or it might throw off the readings (if it’s looking for a “perfect” stop)

By: Dameishabian

Dameishabian — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:35:00 +0000

Excellent,but how to determine where the ball is reaching the height?

By: Eafme

Eafme — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:18:00 +0000

You’re a fag

By: Brooklyn Girl

Brooklyn Girl — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:57:00 +0000

Well, aside from the fact that the moving image makes me want to throw up, the individual stills are amazing.

By: osaid

osaid — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Really a new way to capture….thanks for sharing.

By: Tony R.

Tony R. — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:33:00 +0000

Ever hear of a camera mounted in a cannon shell? It’s already been done. The camera is mounted in a slanted, transverse hole in the shell and the barrel rifling spins the shell, so that it scans the terrain below as it flies, with real-time image information being transmitted back to the command post by radio.

By: Tony R.

Tony R. — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:16:00 +0000

It could conceivably be vertically launched with a spring loaded device similar to a camera tripod.

By: Tony R.

Tony R. — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:14:00 +0000

This camera can only see in three dimensions, mapped to a two-dimensional field. God sees in 11 dimensions.

By: Tony R.

Tony R. — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:12:00 +0000

Still wrong, Mario. Solid angles are expressed in steradians. There are 4π steradians in a sphere.

By: Tony R.

Tony R. — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:06:00 +0000

It’s a good thing the developer didn’t write any of the firmware in C#, or else Microsoft would be after him for “a piece of the action”.

If this thing were to go into production, the padding could be simplified into two hemispherical custom-molded EVA foam shells, possibly user-replaceable when they got sufficiently damaged.

By: Mario Alessi

Mario Alessi — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:43:00 +0000

360 Degrees is on plane. It captures a spherical panorama not a cylindrical panorama which is expressed by 360 degress. If you mean square degrees 4*pi*(180/pi)^2 its about 41253

By: Leonard Brooks

Leonard Brooks — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 12:22:00 +0000

this awesome new camera will be a must have for parties, especially new Year’s eve

By: Sheri Ann Johnson

Sheri Ann Johnson — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:54:00 +0000

I want one!!

By: lawder

lawder — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:41:00 +0000

yeah it dosent make since to buy something and throw it.unless it was under waranty then it might be diffrent.

By: Blair Benjamin Carmichael

Blair Benjamin Carmichael — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:01:00 +0000

You could call this a “Gods Eye View” camera.

He see’s all!

By: Caligula

Caligula — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:42:00 +0000

CCD’s have gotten cheap and so has CPU power, combine the two along with a compact power source and reasonable durability and all that’s left is some pretty sophisticated, but not really difficult, programming. Mostly math doing smoothing and mapping of the camera overlap to generate images with higher resolutions than the cameras themselves have. Afterall, this would create a “compound eye” type image that, with the right processing, could create a MUCH higher resolution still product of any given frame by aggregating the motion information from the multiple cameras that views that particular spot.

And, if you’re REALLY worried about losing it, tie a lanyard to it. It can process out the lanyard if its a distinctive color.

By: Caligula

Caligula — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:37:00 +0000

It’s a Kino, one of those drones they used on Stargate Atlantis for their videoblogs home and such. Of course the Kino’s were science fiction, but the CONCEPT was basic. Only without the antigravity generators and with a better merge algorithm for aggregating the camera data. Such a “probe ball” has been on the military’s list of “we want” things for years. Even without the antigravity ;-)

By: Moonrick

Moonrick — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:01:00 +0000

the only draw back is that you get to have the same throwing gesture of a person in the shot nevertheless its a creative gadget.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:40:00 +0000

I’m envisioning something way too expensive to throw, at least for the first few iterations.

By: Schorschi

Schorschi — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:05:00 +0000

Excellent camera for taking pictures of people and the insides of their hands.

By: Ddddd

Ddddd — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:37:00 +0000

It’s obviously not released to the public. Read the article.

By: dddd

dddd — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:36:00 +0000

The picture quality isnt amazing but it is still a great invention.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:31:00 +0000

It looks like it has incredible potential. But…I really don’t see someone throwing what must be a pricey camera up in the air while up on a precarious precipice!

By: First Name

First Name — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:12:00 +0000

There was a team in my final project class for my electrical engineering degree that was constructing something similar to this. Their idea was to use a football (American) shaped object that one would throw over or into buildings, with the device wirelessly transmitting video mid-flight for military reconnaissance in urban environments. Sadly, they ran into a whole slew of problems and didn’t finish in time but I still think it was an awesome idea.