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How would you vertically tilt a camera 180 degrees using mirrors?

I'm trying to add a pan/tilt mechanism to a Raspberry Pi's camera. The camera uses one of those flat cables with unstranded wires, and even with a strain gauge, I don't trust it to handle repeated bending, so I'm trying to design a tilt mechanism that allows the camera to be rigidly mounted so no wires move. The tilting also has to happen very quickly, so I'm trying to minimize the amount of mass I need to move.

Then I saw the Oculus kit that actuates a mirror to effectively tilt a laptop's fixed webcam. I'm trying to extend this idea, but I having trouble working out the mechanics that would allow the tilt to extend to 180 degrees. The layout in the Oculus's mechanism only supports a tilt angle of about 90 degrees, and the mirrors are relatively large. Is it possible to modify this to support 180 degrees?

Are there other ways to "bend" the view of a camera without having to move the actual camera?

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2 Answers 2

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You could place the camera looking upwards and a mirror above it. The mirror is attached to a motor so that it's rotation axis is parallel e.g. to the vertical center line of the camera. If the mirror is parallel to the camera, then you get a camera-selfie, if you rotate it by 45deg, you look to one side and with -45deg you look to the other side. So you just have to move the mirror in a range of 90 deg to be able to look to both directions.

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  • $\begingroup$ This is what I'm trying to avoid. I don't want the camera to see itself at all. $\endgroup$
    – Cerin
    Nov 7, 2015 at 16:40
  • $\begingroup$ why? If you just command the mirror to +-45 deg, then the camera won't see itself at all. Which are should the camera see? $\endgroup$
    – FooTheBar
    Nov 7, 2015 at 16:43
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Perhaps a mirror tilted 45 degrees on the end of a motor shaft might work?

top view, camera looking horizontally:

                 .
                 .
                 ./
[camera]<| . . . /=== motor
                /

front view, camera looking horizontally directly at you:

[camera]<| . . . |(mirror)|===(motor)
   ||                            ||
  ---------------(ground)-----------

front view, camera looking down:

[camera]<| . . . . . \========(motor)
   ||                .           ||
  ---------------(ground)-----------

front view, camera looking up:

                     .
                     .
                     .
[camera]<| . . . . . /========(motor)
   ||                            ||
  ---------------(ground)-----------

Forgive the crude ASCII art. I hope this makes sense to you.

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