Hand held 360 photo camera.

[macross]

Hey guys

I’d like to ask you if it would be possible to make a hand held photo camera that could take 360 panoramic pictures via 5 or more cameras which would be arranged so that the photos could be stitched into 360 panorama image, like the ones in google street view.
In my opinion the hardest part of this project would be creating software which could recognize where the images should be stitched seamlessly, because the end of one image wouldn’t be the beginning of the other. And also I would imagine the stitching part would be done externally with a smartphone or a table as it requires a lot of processing power.
As far as my research showed there’s no such product on the market. The only thing that comes close is the Ricoh Theta 360 - degree camera But the way I see it, it has three big shortcomings.

1. It only has 2 cameras so uses “Fish eye” lenses to get that 360 image, which also gives warping effect to the pictures.
2. The “Fish eye” lenses stick out way above the housing which makes them extremely vulnerable to scratches and if dropped to braking altogether.
3. Also the “Ricoh Theta 360 - degree camera” doesn’t have flash so no clear pictures at low light.

So I’d really like to hear your opinion from a technical point of view, is it technically possible to make such camera and make it the size of a “Neurolizer” as seen in M.I.B movies?

Thank you for your answers

[angst7]

Technical considerations aside, most newer Android phones have photo-sphere built in.  You can do it right from the camera app with your smart phone.  You just stand in one spot, and slowly turn, taking several photos, then the software stitches them together very nicely.

[macross]

Well I’m aware of that, but the device I described above would be able to take these photo-sphere pictures instantly like a regular snapshot without the having to turn around.

[AndreasF]

There is the Panono camera that more or less does that. They are asking for crowdfunding on indigogo (not sure they'll make it):

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/panono-panoramic-ball-camera

[macross]

Yes I’ve seen their campaign, but what they’re doing is a whole different thing. Their camera is built for throwing, it is made to withstand impacts to the ground and to do so they had to make engineering solutions that, in my opinion, made the camera impracticable and unattractive. Like having to use a ski pole when taking pictures from the ground if you don't want to obstruct the view.

ps. a huge ball camera on a ski pole, which you can’t even carry in your pocket, is not the device I have in mind. 

pps. damn I always only notice typos when I already post a message, that's why they all are edited.

[marinedalek]

The tricky part is always going to be parallax when you're dealing with multiple cameras. Professional photographers have to use specific tripods when taking panoramas that allow the camera to be shifted back, so that the camera can rotate around the point at which no parallax error occurs when the camera is rotated. With lenses on the outside of a ball (for example), that's not possible. Obviously the smaller you can make the camera,  the smaller the parallax error, but you'll never get it perfect using the multiple outward-facing lens method.