PTZ Camera Modeling and Panoramic View Generation via Focal Plane Mapping

We present a novel technique to accurately map the complete field-of-coverage of a camera to its pan-tilt space in an efficient manner. This camera model enables mapping the coordinates of any (x, y) point in the camera’s current image to that point’s corresponding orientation in the camera’s pan-tilt space. The model is based on the elliptical locus of the projections of a fixed point on the original focal plane of a moving camera. The parametric location of this point along the ellipse defines the change in camera orientation. The efficiency of the model lies in the fast and automatic mapping technique. We employ the proposed model to generate panoramas and evaluate the mapping procedure with multiple PTZ surveillance cameras.