Immersive imaging method and apparatus

A camera apparatus for recording the appearance of a wide field of view up to a complete sphere, by making use of six equally-spaced alignment points, comprising:

• at least one subcamera, each subcamera comprising a lens having a field of view sufficient to encompass two adjacent pentagonal sections of a spherical field of view divided according to the projection of a concentric pentagonal dodecahedron;
• and
• means for centering said field of view on at least one of the six horizontal dodecahedron edges immediately above and below an equatorial plane equidistant from opposite vertices and bisecting said pentagonal dodecahedron.

A camera apparatus for recording the appearance of a wide field of view up to a nearly complete sphere, by making use of a set of ten equally-spaced alignment points in a single plane, comprising:

• at least one subcamera, each subcamera comprising a lens having a field of view sufficient to encompass two adjacent pentagonal sections of a spherical field of view divided according to the projection of a concentric pentagonal dodecahedron;
• and
• means for centering said field of view on at least one of the ten decahedron edge centers defined by an equatorial ring plane bisecting and equidistant from opposite faces of said pentagonal dodecahedron.

A camera apparatus for recording the appearance of a wide field of view up to a complete sphere, comprising:

• at least one subcamera, each subcamera comprising a lens having a field of view sufficient to encompass two adjacent pentagonal sections of a spherical field of view divided according to the projection of a concentric pentagonal dodecahedron;
• and;
• means for centering said field of view on one or more of a first set of six selected dodecahedron edge centers which also represent the vertices of a concentric octahedron.

A camera apparatus for recording the appearance of a wide field of view up to a complete sphere, comprising:

• at least one subcamera, each subcamera comprising a lens having a field of view sufficient to encompass three adjacent pentagonal sections of a spherical field of view divided according to the projection of a concentric pentagonal dodecahedron;
• and
• means for centering said field of view on one or more of a first set of four selected dodecahedron vertices which also represent the vertices of a concentric tetrahedron.

An optical apparatus for the transmission of images across crossing light paths, comprising:

• A plurality of divided lens element sets, each divided lens element set capable of transmitting light along an optical path, said optical path including a central optical axis and representing a lens field of view, capable of being focused on an image plane, each divided lens element set comprising a front lens element and a rear lens element,
• A rigid mount array comprising a plurality of parallel opposite faces, and an opening in each of said faces containing a coupling for a coupled lens element, said coupled lens element selected from the set consisting of front lens elements and rear lens elements, so that the only light entering or leaving the array will be through said coupled len elements, and so that said front and said rear lens elements will form a divided lens element set along an optical axis that crosses the center point of said rigid mount array, with no part of any of said divided lens element sets blocking the transmission of light across said rigid mount array along any of the optical paths of said divided lens element sets,
• A plurality of cameras, each of said cameras coupled to one of said rear lens elements, and each designed to record the appearance of the image presented on said image plane.

An improved camera apparatus for recording the appearance of a wide field of view up to a complete sphere, comprising:

• up to six subcameras, each subcamera comprising a lens having a field of view of at least one pentagonal section of a spherical field of view divided according to the projection of a concentric pentagonal dodecahedron;
• and
• a rigid mount coupled to the subcameras, and arranged to orient each lens to face inward along an optical axis crossing the center point of the dodecahedron.

Recording apparatus especially suited for the recording of nearly spherical views, comprising:

• a camera array having a center point and an overall field of view of most of a sphere, the camera array comprising multiple cameras, each of which covers a segment of the overall field of view, the camera array having a blind spot including at least one segment of the field of view and extending outward from the center point, the blind spot being invisible to the camera array;
• and
• recording equipment coupled to the camera array and disposed within the blind spot.

An easily assembled modular screen for a dome theater, comprising:

• a modular framework of geodesic great circle lengths, the lengths having dimensions corresponding to the radius, altitude and at least one half of an edge of a spherical dodecahedron, as projected onto a concentric sphere;
• and
• a plurality of screen elements attached to the modular framework, each screen element having a curvature corresponding to the concentric sphere and a standardized shape, with edges corresponding to said lengths, and means for attachment to said framework.