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Flexible Camera Array Creates Dynamic Panoramas

Researchers from the Human Media Lab (HML) of Queen's University in Canada developed a compound camera platform - called FlexCam - that supplements a thin-film, flexible organic light-emitting diode (FOLED) photographic viewfinder display with an array of lenses. Their prototype allows for the photograph to act as a camera, exploiting flexibility of the viewfinder as a means to dynamically reconfigure images captured by the photograph. The flexible camera array has altered optical characteristics when flexed, allowing users to expand and contract the camera's field of view (FOV) to frame their panoramic shots. Integrated bend sensors measure the amount of flexion in the display. The degree of flexion is used as input to software, which stitches images from the camera array and adjusts viewfinder size to reflect the virtual camera's FOV.