GoPro Hero3 Panorama Rig - No-Parallax by klakar

Last crawled date: 2 years, 11 months ago

This is my attempt at creating a "no-parallax" rig for a GoPro Hero 3 so I can create nice 360x180 spherical panoramas easy.
http://youtu.be/oYWrfCssPI8
You will not be able to capture a perfect panorama without something similar. Not handheld and certainly not with a multi-lens rig...
You will also need:
some wood screws (3 x 15 mm aprox).
One 4 mm by 10 mm bolt and washer.
One bearing model: 608
two servos (like HK-15178B)
If you use the optional "light" GoPro mount (goprolight.stl) you will also need a 4 mm by 10 mm bolt and nut to secure the lens. This mount will make it possible to orient the camera anyway you want!
The light mount has two "dents", by which you can align the camera side, and getting the image (4:3) diagonal horizontal or vertical. The horizontal diagonal orientation will however need additional washers as spacers, which may affect the nodal settings. The mount is intentionally made "tight" so you will need to sand or cut the inner diameter to some extent for a perfect fit.
You may need a zip-tie to secure the bearing and some additional screws and washers.
You will also need to thread the small gear with a 1/4" thread to use a standard tripod mount.
Of course you will also need some form of servo control:
Arduino board,
RaspberyPi or
RC reciver and a transmitter...
I've created a "hole" in the GoPro mount (see stl file) where you can put a 5 mm light sensitive diode connected to your controlboard, and with the appropriate programming you can create a fully automatic panorama rigg... Since the camera will flash a light when a photo is taken in timelapse mode (and other times as well).
I haven't figured out everything my self yet, and I'm not a 100% sure the rig is completely parallax-free. But I've been looking for something similar for a long time without success, so why not try my self.
Read about parallax: http://wiki.panotools.org/Parallax
[EDIT] I've tested the rig (photo included) and the plastic fork is about 3 meters from the camera, and the newspaper at 11 meters. It looks pretty close...
[EDIT] Added an optional "light" GoPro mount that enables other camera orientations.
[EDIT] Added a panorama example photo. It was stitched with Hugin (no manual edits) and I removed the marks in the snow in Gimp. Who said you needed a lot of expensive equipment and software to create good panoramas?
[EDIT] Added a photo of the more or less finished rig! Using a "Trinket" micro-controller and a photo-resistor as trigger for the GoPro timelaps, set at 5 second interval. 8 photos covers all 360x180 in less than 40 seconds. Trinket and photo-resistor is mounted in custom printed parts, but it's SO custom, it's not much use to upload the STL's. For power I use an USB emergency charger, that's lighter than a 9V battery, and gives me exactly 5V to use, but any mini-USB power cable could be used. Panoramas are captured absolutely perfectly in 60+ MP. Just don't forget to use lens calibration...