Patent ID: 8218005

Claim:
A movable scanning apparatus for producing an interactive virtual movie which comprises open photographs chains and closed photographs chains connected together, which simulates the walking of a user within a real site and exploring the same, comprising: a. a supporting platform; b. a camera which is mounted on and rotatable with respect to said platform; c. displacement measuring means for measuring the displacement of the apparatus; d. first angular measuring means for measuring the angular orientation of the platform with respect to the floor; e. second angular measuring means for measuring the angular change of rotation of the camera about an axis perpendicular to the floor, f. a controller for receiving said displacement measurements as measured by the displacement measurement means and said first and second angular measurement means respectively, and for producing a trigger to said camera to capture a photograph at least each time said apparatus displaces a distance above a predefined distance D value, and/or each time the apparatus changes its orientation by an angle greater than a predefined Δ° value, or when said camera is rotated by an angle greater than a predefined δ° value, and wherein the measurements of said D, Δ° and δ° values are reset and newly measured after each of said photograph capturing; and wherein said apparatus captures photographs from the site in two photographing modes: a. sequential route photographing for creating open chains, in which the scanning apparatus is moved along a route, while capturing a photograph at least each time one of said measurements exceeds respectively a predefined minimal value of D, Δ°, or δ°, and upon each capturing forming connection between the currently captured photograph and the previously captured photograph until the last photograph in the chain; and b. sequential junction photographing for creating closed chains, in which the apparatus is stationary, and the camera is rotated about an axis perpendicular to the ground, while capturing a photograph at least each time the measurement of −δ° exceeds said predefined δ° value, and upon each capturing forming connection between the currently captured photograph and the previously captured photograph until the last photograph in the chain, which is also connected to the first photograph in the chain; and wherein the apparatus further comprises a storage for all the created chains, and a processing unit for, each of the first or last photographs of open chains that were captured adjacent to a junction, finding from among closed chain photographs relating to same adjacent junction, a corresponding similar photograph meeting one of the criteria of highest correlation or having the closest field of view direction, and for connecting between them.