Graduate student Jonas Pfeil, from the Technischen Universitt Berlin, has invented the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera. The prototype comes with thirty-six 362 megapixel cameras and an accelerometer, which triggers the shutters when the camera is suspended in the air at its furthest point of acceleration, before falling down to the ground having taken a 360-degree panoramic image.
The camera avoids ghosting effects and also the need for the tripod mount usually associated with panoramic cameras. Once you’ve tossed it in the air a few dozen times and got creative, you then simply download all the images using a USB port and view the results with the designed software application.
Jonas Pfeil and his team are seeking partners to invest, manufacture and market the camera with plans of using superior micro-cameras, so it could one day be used by professionals, even photojournalists. The question does arise though, what if you’re not very good at catching? Would you knacker it in no time?
