A Unified Approach to Unwarping of Omni-Images into Panoramic and Perspective-View Images Using Pano-Mapping Tables

A unified approach to unwarping of omni-images into panoramic or perspective-view images is proposed. The approach does not adopt the conventional technique of calibrating the related parameters of an omni-camera. Instead, it is based on a new concept of pano-mapping table, which is created once forever by a simple learning process for an omni-camera of any kind as a summary of the information conveyed by all the camera parameters. The learning process takes as input a set of landmark point pairs in the world space and in a given image. With the help of the pano-mapping table, any panoramic or perspective-view image can be created from an input omni-image taken by the omni-camera according to an analytic computation process proposed in this study. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed approach.