Eyeglass-based hands-free videophone

We propose an eyeglass-based videophone that enables the wearer to make a video call without holding a phone (that is to say hands-free) in the mobile environment. The glasses have 4 (or 6) fish-eye cameras to widely capture the face of the wearer and the images are fused to yield 1 frontal face image. The face image is also combined with the background image captured by a rear-mounted camera; the result is a self-portrait image without holding any camera device at arm's length. Simulations confirm that 4 fish-eye cameras with 250-degree field of view (or 6 cameras with 180-degree field of view) can cover 83% of the frontal face. We fabricate a 6 camera prototype, and confirm the possibility of generating the self-portrait image. This system suits not only hands-free videophones but also other applications like visual life logging and augmented reality use.