Apparatus and Method for Spatially Referencing Images

A camera for acquiring spatially-referenced images of indoor spaces, the camera comprising:

• a camera having an optical axis;
• a camera mount coupled to the camera and configured to align the optical axis with a plurality of generally radially symmetric directions, each of the radially symmetric directions approximately corresponding to an angular field of view of the camera;
• a laser range finders coupled to the camera and oriented approximately parallel to the optical axis of the camera;
• an orientation sensor coupled to the camera and configured to indicate which of the radially symmetric directions the camera is facing;
• one or more processors communicatively connected to the laser range finders and the camera;
• and
• tangible machine-readable memory communicatively connected to the processors, the memory storing instructions that when executed by one or more of the one or more processors cause the following to occur:
• storing an image captured by the camera in the memory;
• storing a distance measured by the laser range finder between the laser range finder and a feature depicted in the image;
• storing an orientation indicator measured by the orientation sensor, the orientation indicators indicating an orientation of the optical axis at the time the image is captured;
• and
• associating in the memory the image stored in the memory with the distance stored in memory and the orientation indicator.

A method of operating a distance-referencing camera, the method comprising:

• positioning a camera in an indoor space at a first position;
• orienting, from the first position, the camera in a first selected orientation;
• capturing a first image of the indoor space with the camera from the first position in the first selected orientation;
• measuring, from the first position, a first distance between a distance sensor and a first feature of the indoor space;
• associating, in a tangible machine-readable memory, the measured distance with the image captured from the first position;
• positioning the camera in the indoor space at a second position, the second position being substantially different from the first position;
• orienting, from the second position, the camera in the first selected orientation;
• capturing a second image of the indoor space with the camera from the second position in the first selected orientation;
• measuring, from the second position, a second distance between the distance sensor and a second feature of the indoor space;
• associating, in the tangible machine-readable memory, the second measured distance with the second image captured from the second position.

A method of determining the location from which images were captured, the method comprising:

• obtaining a plurality of distance-referenced images, each distance-referenced image captured from a different position among a plurality of positions, and each distance-referenced image associated with two or fewer distances and two or fewer orientations;
• determining the locations of the plurality of positions in a shared coordinate system based on the two or fewer distances and the two or fewer orientations;
• and
• associating the determined locations with corresponding images of the distance-referenced images in spatially-referenced images stored by a spatially-referenced image repository.