Scotland-based camera design and manufacturing company, NCTech, has launched a fully automatic instant 360º panoramic camera. The iStar is ideally suited for sectors including engineering, heritage, construction, surveying, architecture, mining, and oil and gas.
Designed to be integrated into the lidar scanning process, this rapid imaging 360º camera has the power to process its images internally, with no need for a computer to complete post-production processing or stitching.
iStar produces instant 50 Megapixel high-resolution full spherical images to measure, document and visualise a location, building or terrain. The image resolution of the camera exceeds that of traditional cameras and when superimposed onto point cloud data allows the viewer to clearly visualise the scene.
The camera is small, light and robust making it easy to transport and quick to deploy. Operated by a touch screen on top of the camera, iStar can be controlled remotely via a tablet and can also be linked live to a TV monitor or over the internet enabling offsite control.
The camera has no moving parts and a solid steel body. It is available in two models, Fusion and Pulsar, both of which capture 360º horizontally and 280º vertically, including the zenith. Pulsar offers extended capabilities over Fusion, including speed and time saving features to speed up productivity and provide even higher quality HDR (high dynamic range) images. It also offers a superior user interface with live full immersive view and introduces network connectivity and fast capture for video surveillance. Fusion can be easily upgraded remotely to Pulsar.