Hemispherical Photography - History of Hemispherical Photography

History of Hemispherical Photography

The hemispherical lens (also known as a fisheye or whole-sky lens) was originally designed by Robin Hill (1924) to view the entire sky for meteorological studies of cloud formation. Foresters and ecologists conceived of using photographic techniques to study the light environment in forests by examining the canopy geometry. In particular, Evans and Coombe (1959) estimated sunlight penetration through forest canopy openings by overlaying diagrams of the sun track on hemispherical photographs. Later, Margaret Anderson (1964, 1971) provided a thorough theoretical treatment for calculating the transmission of direct and diffuse components of solar radiation through canopy openings using hemispherical photographs. At that time hemispherical photograph analysis required tedious manual scoring of overlays of sky quadrants and the track of the sun. With the advent of personal computers, researchers developed digital techniques for rapid analysis of hemispherical photographs (Chazdon and Field 1987, Rich 1988, 1989, 1990, Becker et al. 1989). In recent years, researchers have started using digital cameras in favor of film cameras, and algorithms are being developed for automated image classification and analysis. Various commercial software programs have become available for hemispherical photograph analysis, and the technique has been applied for diverse uses in ecology, meteorology, forestry, and agriculture.