Nao to the rescue!
Basically, Nao sits or stands and looks around, taking pictures at regular intervals. The trick, of course, is that the pictures he takes overlap at least a little bit, and that these overlappy bits have salient features (like corners) to use for gluing all the photos together.
Here is an example of a panorama Naoki took while I chilled at home with friends.
There are still typical panorama problems, like lighting differences. Happens a lot outside when shadows and sunshine intermingle - you see "seams" where one picture is clearly darker than the other. One way to avoid seams is to fix a single lighting setting for a sequence of pics (not auto-exposure for each one).
Another problem is that to capture people, they need not to move! Being in one pose in one picture... and a different pose in another... is a sure-fire way to become a ghost ^^ (In the picture above, someone's arm is missing...)
One way to tackle this problem is to assume that, as upright homo sapiens, we can capture people in a quick series of up-and-down shots. Unfortunately, taking lots of up-down photos with his head camera makes Nao look epileptic, so I still have to figure out the best balance of function and freakiness.
So, I guess NAO could be useful for things like birthday party pics where no one wants to be left out. Or a sweeping panorama of the family at the park. Or if he walks around, he can create an automatic panorama of a house...
How do you like this idea? Where else could an automatic panorama be useful?
