February 16, 2025
Description
Portable, tripod-mounted, lightweight gimbal robot for high-resolution spherical panoramas. Rotates a camera 360° horizontally and 180° vertically to cover the entire surroundings, minus the small footprint of its circular tripod mount.
Can be used for spherical panoramas, gigapixel photography, timelapse photography or even DIY pan-head for any small camera. Its design goals are low weight and size so it can be used while traveling, so some compromises were made in that direction. The camera movement is slow, this is not a real-time stabilization gimbal.
Best suited for photos intended to be stitched into very large panoramic images. The camera can be mounted to rotate around its "nodal point" (optical center), both vertically and horizontally, to avoid parallax errors that cause stitching problems with regular gimbals. Vertical positioning is achieved by a rail slide built into the unit, and horizontally by the offset camera mount.
This is part of a larger project that includes an Arduino controller and smartphone (iOS) control app. https://www.facebook.com/panocontroller/videos/526181134821047/
Parts needed
Some parameters can be tweaked in Autodesk Fusion 360. The complete Fusion 360 model (provided as-is) is at https://a360.co/2ztelQZ (Autodesk short link). There is a load test simulation model there as well, it's inaccurate due to materials but insightful nevertheless.
Printer Brand:
Monoprice
Printer:
Maker Ultimate
No
Supports:
No
0.2
Infill:
25%
Notes:
Parts to print and Cura settings (I printed all with 1.2mm wall, no support, skirt except body)
Note that the tolerance between the parts is tight, so depending on printer and filament calibration, might need outer-before-inner wall enabled for some parts to increase surface accuracy. I suggest to print the small parts first to determine if this is necessary.
Assemble the parts in the order shown in photos. The fittings should have no wiggle room other than the direction intended for the parts to slide over each other.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution
laurb9
