Patent 7593057 was granted and assigned to Microsoft on September, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A panoramic camera design that is lower cost, robust, stable and more user friendly than prior art designs. The camera design makes use of a unified molded structure of optical material to house a mirror, aligned sensor, and lens assembly. The unified molded structure of the camera keeps the sensed optical path enclosed to minimize dust and user's fingers and maintain optical alignment.