--- Gus Salavatore Calabrese wrote: > Having begun the prototyping of a SAN (Swiss Army Knife) > optical workstation, some questions have come up. > > My intention is to have a portable platform which has programable > lighting ( IR thru UV ) and a camera that will take wide angle, > telecentric and macro shots. ( Under computer control ) > > I am guessing that some telecentric characteristics can be faked by > moving the camera ( or object ) around and stitching pixels together so > that vertical surfaces do not block the observation of details next to > them. Or maybe a telecentric lense system is a better approach? Cost and > weight are issues here. > Why not use a digital camera pointing at a conical mirror then unwraping the information focused on the image plane into a 360 view. This requires 1) No movement of the camera, save perhaps focus, 2) few optical eliments, and no need for achromatic adjustment since there are no prisms involved (and thus no chromatic seperation issues). > http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/3d/telecent.htm > > Another issue I was pondering was whether the resolution of the > camera could be improved by taking a shot, moving it a fraction of a > pixel, taking a shot, moving it a fraction of a pixel, ....... > Would it be possible to compute sub-pixels by doing this ? No. Ok LITTLE bit of information about sensors, here. Your typical camera image element is a grid of monochromatic sensors with pass filters above them. They are arranged in what is termed a bayer pattern. Something like R G G B The reality is your typical digital camera's resolution SAYS 3 mega pixels for example, but it most certainly is NOT 3 mega pixels. It's a bit of deception. They estimate the color at the other pixel location by converting the pattern through a filter into RGB pixels. However to be blunt and to the point, the RGB values are a guess at best. A more expensive but acurate system involves precise lenses and dichromatic mirrors and 3 image sensors. A company was developing a sensor that was true RGB however I've not seen it hit the market. > Or would it be better to zoom in, take a shot of a small portion of > the object, move to the > next section, etc. and then stitch the sectors together ? A > telecentric lens might help > with this. Can a telecentric lens be zoomed ? AHEM did you read the page you gave as a reference? It answers the later question for you. :D So here is a good question What are you trying to do? :) Stephen R. Phillips was here Please be advised what was said may be absolutely wrong, and hereby this disclaimer follows. I reserve the right to be wrong and admit it in front of the entire world. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist