The angular accuracy of 360° Panoramas influences the accuracy of measurements made from them and 360° Panoramas used to add ‘real word colours’ to LiDAR Point Clouds can result in incorrect colours being assigned to points if the360° Panorama is not sufficiently accurate.

Previous evaluations have found that 360° Panoramas stitched from a number of images rotated about the lens NPP (No Parallax Point or Nodal Point), such as those created using a DSLR and Fisheye lens, are much more precise than those created from dual lens cameras with the two hemispherical images joined together. With previous experiments with dual lens single shot cameras  it was found that two sets of images taken at right angles to each other with the four hemispherical images stitched in PTGui (50% overlap) that the resulting 360° Panorama had better angular accuracy than for  the joined hemispherical images. The DJI Osmo 360 yields Equirectangular images directly so this is not an option.

To evaluate the angular accuracy for the DJI Osmo 360 12 targets were placed randomly in all directions which were photographed with the camera in four directions at right angles to each other effectively creating 48 targets. The targets were measured using a Kern DKM2 1” theodolite. The DJI Osmo 360 was mounted so that the centre of lenses matched that centre of the theodolite, so that both were at t the same height.

This diagram below shows the difference in angles graphically, with the green circles having a radius of one, two and three degrees of arc.

This is not a scientific test as all the targets were in a band around the horizon between -30° and +30°, but gives a good indication of the angular accuracies of the different cameras.

The angular accuracy for 360° Panoramas stitched from a number of images rotated about the lens NPP is proven by the fact that the correct colour is applied to each point when used to add real world colours to a LiDAR Point Cloud.

September 2025