Visual Orbits, and other mathematical breakthroughs

Here's the "before" video or image sequence:
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Here's the "after" video or image sequence:
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  1. Invention title: Video Orbits, and other mathematical breakthroughs.
  2. Summary explanation -- how it works:
    Video Orbits "stitches" together multiple pictures of the same scene or object. This allows for the creation of 360 degree panoramas simply by looking around (if you're wearing a camera), or by swinging a camera around (if you're holding it).

    Video Orbits is a new breakthrough in algebraic projective geometry, solving a previously unsolved problem of relating images in a simple featureless way that does not require identifying specific features in any of the images.

    When Video Orbits are made by a wearable eye-is-the-camera system, they're called "lookpaintings" because they capture what you see, e.g. your gaze as you look around. Here are some lookpainting from S. Mann's right eye, as he looks around while doing some banking:

    This demonstrates a useful way of keeping track of one's personal activities (e.g. when the bank lost some important paperwork and refused to provide access to their surveillance videos to prove Mann's account of what had happened). Automatic overlays are also possible with Video Orbits.

    It was invented by S. Mann in the early 1990s and is now widely used.

    Presently MIT owns Mann's patent (as is common for MIT students). MIT regularly licenses technology to startups that include the student or alumnus.

  3. Example commercial applications:
    Image processing, image compression, image analysis, computer vision, VR, AR (Virtual, Augmented or Augmediated Reality), and shared visual experiences (see related invention, Eye-to-Eye).
  4. Link to technical papers associated with the invention: Video Orbits. See also Eye-to-eye (paper on a related invention), and VideoOrbits on Eye Tap Devices....
  5. Patent applications filed or issued: U.S. Patent 5706416. Other patents in the works.
  6. Prototypes constructed: A number of devices and systems have been constructed by S. Mann and his team of students around this work.
Here is a brief biography on the inventor, Steve Mann; and also Wikipedia has more info on inventor S. Mann.

Return to a list of some of Steve Mann inventions