# Review on Panoramic Imaging and Its Applications in Scene Understanding

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.05570 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.05570/

## Key facts

- Cited by 43 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 63 of its 423 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 May 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 63)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [Fully Convolutional Networks for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.4038/) (2014)
- [RAFT: Recurrent All-Pairs Field Transforms for Optical Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12039/) (2020)
- [YOLO9000: Better, Faster, Stronger](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.08242/) (2016)
- [FlowNet: Learning Optical Flow with Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1504.06852/) (2015)
- [NetVLAD: CNN architecture for weakly supervised place recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.07247/) (2015)
- [ORB-SLAM2: an Open-Source SLAM System for Monocular, Stereo and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.06475/) (2016)
- [Direct Sparse Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.02565/) (2016)
- [Joint 2D-3D-Semantic Data for Indoor Scene Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.01105/) (2017)
- [Deep Multi-modal Object Detection and Semantic Segmentation for Autonomous Driving: Datasets, Methods, and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.07830/) (2019)
- [WoodScape: A multi-task, multi-camera fisheye dataset for autonomous driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.01489/) (2019)
- [HoHoNet: 360 Indoor Holistic Understanding with Latent Horizontal Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.11498/) (2020)
- [OmniDepth: Dense Depth Estimation for Indoors Spherical Panoramas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.09620/) (2018)
- [LayoutNet: Reconstructing the 3D Room Layout from a Single RGB Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.08999/) (2018)
- [PanoFormer: Panorama Transformer for Indoor 360 Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09283/) (2022)
- [UniFuse: Unidirectional Fusion for 360circ Panorama Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.03550/) (2021)
- [Bending Reality: Distortion-aware Transformers for Adapting to Panoramic Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.01452/) (2022)
- [DuLa-Net: A Dual-Projection Network for Estimating Room Layouts from a Single RGB Panorama](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11977/) (2018)
- [Cube Padding for Weakly-Supervised Saliency Prediction in 360deg Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.01320/) (2018)
- [OmniFusion: 360 Monocular Depth Estimation via Geometry-Aware Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00838/) (2022)
- [360MonoDepth: High-Resolution 360deg Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.15669/) (2021)
- [OmniDet: Surround View Cameras based Multi-task Visual Perception Network for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.07448/) (2021)
- [Corners for Layout: End-to-End Layout Recovery from 360 Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.08094/) (2019)
- [Orientation-aware Semantic Segmentation on Icosahedron Spheres](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.12849/) (2019)
- [Spherical View Synthesis for Self-Supervised 360 Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.08112/) (2019)
- [Capturing Omni-Range Context for Omnidirectional Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.05687/) (2021)
- [Restricted Deformable Convolution based Road Scene Semantic Segmentation Using Surround View Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.00708/) (2018)
- [ACDNet: Adaptively Combined Dilated Convolution for Monocular Panorama Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.14440/) (2021)
- [DensePASS: Dense Panoramic Semantic Segmentation via Unsupervised Domain Adaptation with Attention-Augmented Context Exchange](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.06383/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 43)

- [Behind Every Domain There is a Shift: Adapting Distortion-aware Vision Transformers for Panoramic Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.11860/) (2022)
- [OmniSAM: Omnidirectional Segment Anything Model for UDA in Panoramic Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07098/) (2025)
- [SGAT4PASS: Spherical Geometry-Aware Transformer for PAnoramic Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03403/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Representation Learning, Optimization Strategies, and Applications for Omnidirectional Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10444/) (2025)
- [Open Panoramic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02685/) (2024)
- [Panoramic Panoptic Segmentation: Insights Into Surrounding Parsing for Mobile Agents via Unsupervised Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.10711/) (2022)
- [Minimalist and High-Quality Panoramic Imaging with PSF-aware Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.12992/) (2023)
- [Omnidirectional Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04565/) (2025)
- [LF-VISLAM: A SLAM Framework for Large Field-of-View Cameras with Negative Imaging Plane on Mobile Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.05167/) (2022)
- [Annular Computational Imaging: Capture Clear Panoramic Images through Simple Lens](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.06070/) (2022)
- [RecRecNet: Rectangling Rectified Wide-Angle Images by Thin-Plate Spline Model and DoF-based Curriculum Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.01661/) (2023)
- [FoVA-Depth: Field-of-View Agnostic Depth Estimation for Cross-Dataset Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.13786/) (2024)
- [QuaDreamer: Controllable Panoramic Video Generation for Quadruped Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02512/) (2025)
- [OneOcc: Semantic Occupancy Prediction for Legged Robots with a Single Panoramic Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.03571/) (2025)
- [3D reconstruction from spherical images: A review of techniques, applications, and prospects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04495/) (2023)
- [Occlusion-Aware Seamless Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02182/) (2024)
- [FishDreamer: Towards Fisheye Semantic Completion via Unified Image Outpainting and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13842/) (2023)
- [Beyond the Field-of-View: Enhancing Scene Visibility and Perception with Clip-Recurrent Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11293/) (2022)
- [PanoVPR: Towards Unified Perspective-to-Equirectangular Visual Place Recognition via Sliding Windows across the Panoramic View](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14095/) (2023)
- [Convolution kernel adaptation to calibrated fisheye](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01456/) (2024)
- [Panoramic Multimodal Semantic Occupancy Prediction for Quadruped Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.13108/) (2026)
- [Multi-Spectral Image Stitching via Spatial Graph Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16741/) (2023)
- [Unlocking Constraints: Source-Free Occlusion-Aware Seamless Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.21198/) (2025)
- [LF-PGVIO: A Visual-Inertial-Odometry Framework for Large Field-of-View Cameras using Points and Geodesic Segments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.06663/) (2023)
- [3D Reconstruction of Spherical Images based on Incremental Structure from Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.12770/) (2023)
- [Surround-View Fisheye Optics in Computer Vision and Simulation: Survey and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12041/) (2024)
- [Towards Dependable Optical Flow: Benchmarks for Real-World Spatiotemporal Corruptions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14865/) (2024)
- [PanoLora: Bridging Perspective and Panoramic Video Generation with LoRA Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.11092/) (2025)
- [PanoWorld: Geometry-Consistent Panoramic Video World Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15391/) (2026)
- [Panoramic Out-of-Distribution Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.03539/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

With the rapid development of high-speed communication and artificial intelligence technologies, human perception of real-world scenes is no longer limited to the use of small Field of View (FoV) and low-dimensional scene detection devices. Panoramic imaging emerges as the next generation of innovative intelligent instruments for environmental perception and measurement. However, while satisfying the need for large-FoV photographic imaging, panoramic imaging instruments are expected to have high resolution, no blind area, miniaturization, and multidimensional intelligent perception, and can be combined with artificial intelligence methods towards the next generation of intelligent instruments, enabling deeper understanding and more holistic perception of 360-degree real-world surrounding environments. Fortunately, recent advances in freeform surfaces, thin-plate optics, and metasurfaces provide innovative approaches to address human perception of the environment, offering promising ideas beyond conventional optical imaging. In this review, we begin with introducing the basic principles of panoramic imaging systems, and then describe the architectures, features, and functions of various panoramic imaging systems. Afterwards, we discuss in detail the broad application prospects and great design potential of freeform surfaces, thin-plate optics, and metasurfaces in panoramic imaging. We then provide a detailed analysis on how these techniques can help enhance the performance of panoramic imaging systems. We further offer a detailed analysis of applications of panoramic imaging in scene understanding for autonomous driving and robotics, spanning panoramic semantic image segmentation, panoramic depth estimation, panoramic visual localization, and so on. Finally, we cast a perspective on future potential and research directions for panoramic imaging instruments.