At the National Tactical Officers conference in Kansas City earlier this month, a company called Bounce Imaging unveiled a very unique camera.
The device, called the Pit Viper 360 by its maker, is being claimed as the world’s first 360° panoramic thermal-imaging tactical throwable camera. Bounce Imaging has designed the compact, sphere-shaped camera as a tool for use by law enforcement and military personnel.
With these uses in mind, the new camera has been designed to be rugged and capable of capturing images from multiple angles. It’s a throwable, spherical device that resembles a cricket ball and is covered in several hardened camera lenses.
It’s also designed to be extremely tough according to Bounce Imaging.
This is particularly important because the camera is meant to be literally thrown or rolled right into situations such as hostage takings, armed standoffs and other potentially violent, unpredictable contexts.
Despite being covered in camera lenses, the Pit Viper 360 is built to roll across uneven floors strewn with broken debris or to simply be thrown a long distance through windows, down staircases, or into unfamiliar spaces.
It can supposedly even be thrown right through the glass of closed windows (thus breaking it) and still perform as needed.
Other possible ways of using the Pit Viper include attaching it to tethers or placing it on the end of a pole so that it can be lowered into a strategic viewing location.
In one promotional video by Bounce Imaging, the company also showcases the camera being held by the mechanical arm of a four-legged Quadbot from the company Boston Dynamics for the sake of placing it in a high-risk space.
While in use, the Pit Viper 360 can constantly and wirelessly send back thermal, infrared, and black & white images to connected mobile devices. It can also send audio recordings and can even be used for two-way communication.
You can see a sample video of the Pit Viper’s thermal imaging chops here on Bounce Imaging’s website.
According to Bounce Imaging, the Pit Viper 360 is unique in that instead of relying on a camera with a fragile pan/tilt motor to generate panoramic images, it uses six fixed camera cores distributed across its shape to capture a full panoramic view of a space.
This view can be captured and watched in real time and includes stabilized video with minimal latency. The Pit Viper is also very compact (as you can see in the video above) and has modest but unspecified power requirements.
Bounce Imaging claims that it will release the Pit Viper 360 by 2025. The company hasn’t yet announced a price.
Images credit: Bounce Imaging
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