Throwable Camera Creates 360-degree Photos

What if you could get an over head view of the world around you at a single point and put it into a panoramic picture to show off. A new concept camera does just that, it’s a foam padded ball that is covered in cameras.

The photo ball is pretty simple and contains cameras all over the surface and includes an accelerometer in it. Once you throw up the ball the accelerometer measures the upward force, at the top of the upward force before it comes down the accelerometer will detect itself going back down and quickly snap the picture at the hight of the arch of the ball.

The ball contains 36 cameras that take a single photo simultaneously. Once the picture is taken all 36 photos can be transferred by USB to a computer panoramic program that stitches together all 36 photos to create an interactive photo that can be manipulated and look around in all directions.

The cameras inside are only 2-megapixels and outputs an alright quality of image and we hope that will improve over time. Quality will drop when a user tries to zoom in on a particular object but over all the picture creates a great representation of the world in a 360-degree view.

One of the major downsides to the camera is that the ball has to be thrown straight up with out any tilt or roll, if it has a high amount of either the picture may turn out blurry. Also, the size of the ball isn’t that great to carry around.

Right now you cannot purchase the camera ball and the creators currently have a patent pending on the product. It would be a great thing to use and we’ll probably see a limited amount come out in the near future, but for now there is no plans.