Patent ID: 8687041

Claim:
A stereoscopic panorama image creating apparatus, comprising: a stereoscopic image obtaining unit configured to obtain a plurality of stereoscopic images formed of left images and right images shot by a stereoscopic imaging apparatus, the stereoscopic images continuously shot with the stereoscopic imaging apparatus being swung in a constant direction; a stereoscopic panorama image creating unit configured to create a stereoscopic panorama image formed of left and right panorama images by synthesizing the left images together and synthesizing the right images together from among the plurality of stereoscopic images obtained by the stereoscopic image obtaining unit; a corresponding point detecting unit configured to detect a plurality of corresponding points for parallax adjustment, the corresponding points having features matched between the left images and the right images of the plurality of stereoscopic images obtained by the stereoscopic image obtaining unit or between the left and right panorama images of the created stereoscopic panorama image; an image shift amount calculating unit configured to calculate a plurality of image shift amounts for setting parallaxes of the detected plurality of corresponding points each at a predetermined parallax amount; and a recording unit configured to record the created stereoscopic panorama image in a recording medium, the recording unit configured to record position information of the plurality of corresponding points for parallax adjustment on the stereoscopic panorama image and the calculated plurality of image shift amounts as being associated with each other in the recording medium as auxiliary information of the stereoscopic panorama image; a reading unit configured to read a stereoscopic panorama image and auxiliary information of the stereoscopic panorama image from the recording medium; a reproducing unit configured to cause the read stereoscopic panorama image to be magnified with a predetermined magnification, the reproducing unit configured to cause the magnified stereoscopic panorama image to be reproduced by scrolling on a stereoscopic display or reproduced by frame advance for each of a plurality of frames obtained by dividing the stereoscopic panorama image, automatically or with a manual instruction input; and a parallax adjusting unit configured to select one image shift amount from among a plurality of image shift amounts recorded as the auxiliary information of the stereoscopic panorama image, the image shift amount corresponding to a stereoscopic image in a screen of the stereoscopic display, the parallax adjusting unit configured to perform a parallax adjustment of the stereoscopic image based on the selected image shift amount, when the stereoscopic panorama image is reproduced by scrolling or frame advance by the reproducing unit.