Theia develops innovative distortion-free ultra-wide-angle lenses

Today’s high-resolution cameras have many advantages if they have the right lens for the job. When that includes covering large areas or reducing cost by installing fewer cameras, you need a wide-angle lens. Fisheye style lenses with barrel distortion are routinely used to cover an ultra-wide field of view; however, they create a curved and distorted image which causes significant loss of resolution at the image edges. This presents a variety of issues for ITS applications such as difficulty in identification or recognition of objects and details.
October 26, 2022 Read time: 2 mins

 

To counter the drawbacks of fisheye-style optics, Theia Technologies has developed a suite of rectilinear lenses offering a different, ultra-wide field of view without the barrel distortion or loss of edge resolution characteristic of fisheye style lenses. Theia achieves this optically, without the use of image correction software or its inherent latency.

The company employs its patented Linear Optical Technology to create a family of multi-megapixel lenses that offer horizontal fields of view up to 135 degrees with very low distortion while improving the resolution at the image edge compared to typical wide-angle lenses.

Applications for Theia’s family of ultra-wide, low distortion lenses include providing great peripheral vision for situational awareness in navigation and remote operation of vehicles and robots used in a variety of ITS applications from logistics to assisted and unmanned vehicles. They capture wide areas at short distances such as in under-vehicle surveillance and shipping container identification, among many other imaging tasks, including applications in close-up applications such as ATMs, card-locked garage entries, and multi-door entryways where both high image detail and wide fields of view are required. Other applications for Theia’s family of ultra-wide, low-distortion lenses include effectively monitoring large areas like parking lots, multi-lane tolling stations, and warehouses.

Choosing the right lens for an application depends on many factors including field of view, required image resolution, multi-spectral capability, image format and mount, among others. To assist in lens selection, Theia offers an image resolution simulator and lens calculator that relates FOV, resolution, and object distance.

Visitors to the Theia website will find it also offers other tools and white papers for a better understanding of its lens technology and selection of the optimal lens for your application.

Content produced in association with Theia Technologies

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • The twisting path to enforcement’s future
    June 5, 2014
    Survey reveals some division of views about enforcement’s future as Colin Sowman discovers. Technological advances and legislative changes pose many questions for those involved in road enforcement, ranging from the changing demands of privacy and data protection legislation to the practicalities on multi-speed enforcement. So to get the industry’s views ITS International took soundings on some of these bigger questions. In a world where many vehicles are fitted with GPS linked ‘black box’ telematics system
    Read More
  • ITS America's Laura Chace: "We're on the precipice of potentially incredible change"
    April 9, 2024
    Laura Chace, president & CEO of ITS America, talks to Adam Hill about knowledge gaps, Phoenix, the pace of change, digitalisation, AI - and the importance of authenticity…
    Read More
  • Don’t drive drunk – or use a hands-free phone
    August 29, 2019
    Despite law changes, drivers’ bad habits have been creeping back in. TRL’s Dr Shaun Helman tells Adam Hill why using a phone at the wheel is just as distracting as driving after a few drinks esearch from as far back as 2002 (see box) suggests that driving while making a phone call – either hands-free or holding a handset to your ear – creates the same amount of distraction as being drunk behind the wheel. While it is notoriously hard to predict how alcohol will affect an individual (due to the speed of
    Read More
  • What's next for traffic management and data collection?
    January 26, 2012
    As the technologies and stakeholders in traffic management evolve, what can we expect to see happening in the coming years? For many, the conversation of the moment is just how, and how far, the newer technologies and services provided principally by the private sector should be allowed to intrude into the realms of traffic management.
    Read More

Highlighted Content