Patent ID: 8547423

Claim:
An imaging system comprising a lens, the design of said lens is characterized by a mapping function given by: h (θ)=( f/ β)*tan(β*θ) for β>0 h (θ)=( f/ β)*sin(β*θ) for β<0 where h is the image height formed at the focal plane of the lens, by off-axis rays entering the lens at a field angle θ, f is the effective focal length and β is the rectilinearity of the lens, an electronic image sensor, an electronic processor, said electronic processor including a means for accepting a user's input, and, said processor programmed to acquire, store, display, select images, said images having an overall field of view, accept a user's input, and perform mathematical transformations on said images thereby producing a transformed image, wherein said mathematical transformations are at least one selected from: distortion transformation, TV distortion correction, spherical projection, cylindrical projection, and transitional projection.