Macro Spherie Photography

Daniel Lanovaz
Aug 9, 2017 · 6 min read

Spherie (360° spherical image) cameras have entered the mainstream. Examples include the Samsung Gear 360, Ricoh Theta S, Insta360 Air, 360Fly, LG 360, Kodak SP360, Giroptic iO, Garmin Virb 360, and many more. Spheries can be viewed using Virtual Reality (VR) headsets or on websites such as Google, Facebook, YouTube 360, Kuula, and many others. Soon cellular phones will contain a built-in spherie camera or will be compatible with a spherie camera attachment such as the Insta360 Air. SpaceVR is bringing spherie cameras into space. All of these spherie cameras focus (pun intended) on human or astronomical scale spherie images and videos.

In this article I introduce a form of macro photography I call macro spherie photography that produces spherie photographs or spherie videos. I perform a tear-down of the Samsung Gear 360 to understand how to build a macro spherie camera either from Samsung Gear 360 parts or using separate components.

Macro Spheries

Although I have 2,800+ spheries on Google Street View and Google Maps that have been viewed over 28 million times, only three of them place the viewer at a scale much smaller than that of a human, mostly due to the constraints of my Gear 360 camera, it’s focusing ability, and it’s close-range stitching defects.

My goal is to build a macro spherie camera where I can capture spheries from the perspective of a viewer smaller than the size of many of my insect-sized subjects, shrinking viewers down into a world they do not normally witness. I need a dual camera module equivalent to the shape of these dragonfly eyes — or smaller — or a single spherical camera module.

Credit: Wikipedia (http://tiny.lanovaz.org/pkwgt)

I asked a colleague of mine who is an incredibly talented image sensor engineer whether anyone has attempted to build a spherical image sensor — what I called a spherie sensor — where the pixels are arranged in a sphere and the connections are centered at the bottom pole of the sphere and the sensor is mounted on a connector pole. He responded that a company, Ball Semiconductor, attempted to build spherical semiconductor products but were commercially unsuccessful. It may be time to dust off Ball Semiconductor technology to build ultra-micro spherie sensors.

Macro Spherie Sensor Module (without focusing lenses) mock-up by the author

The following image from my Instagram account is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail that I photographed with my Samsung Galaxy S8+ cell phone. In fact, all the “macro photographs” on my Instagram account were taken with a stock Samsung Galaxy cell phone (S6, S7, or S8) without any additional lenses. I would have preferred this image to be a spherie where you could pan around to view the world from the perspective of the Tiger Swallowtail, or an ant, or a bee, or an aphid, or a turtle, or even a fly.

Another visit from an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Note the long proboscis (that’s not another leg) and the hexagonal eye reflection (Samsung Galaxy S8+ photo)

Near Lake Tahoe, California, I took the following spherie from the perspective of a mouse looking into the eyes of a rattlesnake. Click on the image to pan around.

Spherie of a rattlesnake near Lake Tahoe, California

Here is another spherie I took in Yosemite, California, of a mushroom from the perspective of the lucky mouse that apparently escaped from the rattlesnake. Click on the image to pan around.

Spherie of a mushroom in Yosemite, California

Samsung Gear 360 Image Format

The Gear 360 comprises two camera modules each with a fisheye lens recording a 190-degree hemisphere. Firmware stitching software combines the two hemispheres into a single rectangular image using an equirectangular projection.

All images recorded by the Gear 360 onto the media card take the form of a JPEG image containing two hemispheres, one for each of the camera modules.

Image as recorded by a Gear 360 prior to stitching

When the image is exported from the Gear 360 it goes through a stitching phase where the left and right hemispheres are stitched into a single equirectangular image as shown below.

Equirectangular image generated by stitching the two hemispheres

When the proper metadata is inserted into the JPEG image hosting sites such as Google Photos, Facebook, Kuula, and many others will properly display the spherie so you can pan around.

Spherie of Squaw Creek, Olympic Valley, Lake Tahoe, California

After completing my teardown I noted the following four features that are required to create a macro spherie camera:

  1. A miniaturized camera module and connector cable.
  2. A miniaturized hemispherical macro focusing lens.
  3. Umbilical cord for power and/or data.
  4. Optional electronics for Bluetooth or Wifi wireless (assumes a power umbilical).

Samsung Gear 360 Teardown Components

Although I do not have step-by-step tear-down photographs while I dismantled the Gear 360, there are many teardown writeups available including one from Samsung containing the following summary image.

Credit: https://news.samsung.com/global/in-depth-look-whats-inside-the-gear-360

The following photographs are the results of the tear-down. The camera is still operational when power is applied.

Samsung Gear 360

This is the dismantled camera with power applied. Note the glowing red LEDs and the LCD display that says “No card”.

Samsung Gear 360 main components (motherboard, 2 image sensors, switches, LEDs, LCD display)

The Gear 360 motherboard top side. The camera modules connect into the two buses along the bottom of the card. The controls connect to the top left bus connector. The display connects to the top middle bus connector.

Gear 360 motherboard top side.

The motherboard top side with the heat sink tape removed.

Gear 360 motherboard top side with head sink tape removed

A close up of the camera module bus connectors on the motherboard.

Gear 360 motherboard camera module bus connectors

The Gear 360 motherboard bottom side where you can see the microSD card slot. The battery connector is the large structure on the bottom right.

Samsung Gear 360 motherboard bottom side.

The Gear 360 motherboard bottom side with the shield removed.

The NFC antenna.

Gear 360 NFC antenna

The internal speaker.

Gear 360 internal speaker

The two camera modules are identical and comprise the sensor, sensor mounting, sensor circuit board, a bus connector, and a fisheye lens assembly that focuses a hemisphere onto the sensor.

Samsung Gear 360 Camera Modules.

A close up of the camera module bus connector.

Here I have placed the two camera modules back-to-back. This is the configuration I need for a macro spherie. That is, the image sensors and lenses not only need to be smaller, but they need to be mounted close together for better stitching. Note that the total width of the two camera modules is greater than 3cm.

Samsung Gear 360 image sensors placed back-to-back.

Conclusion

The Samsung Gear 360 is capable of taking low to the ground images as shown at the beginning of this article. However, the focal length of the lenses and the overall physical dimension of the lenses is far too large for serious macro photography.

Retrofitting the Samsung Gear 360 will require that I obtain extension cables for the camera modules so that I can extend the distance between the camera modules and the main motherboard and power supply. Ideally I would replace the camera modules with much smaller versions.

In the next article I will describe how I converted my Samsung Gear 360 camera into a much smaller Macro Spherie Camera.

Daniel Lanovaz

Written by

Intellectual Property Consultant, Computer Scientist, Entrepreneur, Amateur Animator, Graphic Artist

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