A Historical Review on Panorama Photogrammetry

The paper presents a historical review of panorama image techniques with special emphasis on photogrammetric applications. The first part of the paper deals with the anatomic and visual properties of human vision where the use of panoramic views is evident for monitoring the environment, recognition, avoidance of collision etc. Naturally, the use of photographic panoramic images became very popular already in the 19 century. The paper presents some interesting panorama image acquisition and viewing facilities of the beginning of panorama photography. Several photogrammetric applications are known in the field of close-range imaging and aerial imagery as well. They have always been used in very few and specific fields only. Analog panorama camera have been developed which have been used for photogrammetry and other professional applications. Different techniques are known for the acquisition of cylindrical and spherical images which are addressed by the report. Today’s increasing interest in panorama imagery is mainly initiated by simple digital cameras and simple stitching methods for generating panorama images. The fields of application vary from in-room monitoring, video conferencing, tourist purposes, weather forecast to mobile mapping and 3-D reconstruction. Today's high-level panorama scanners can produce images of highest resolution and superb quality. The combination with 3-D laser-scanners offers new potentials and applications.