Neither the article nor official link gave much optical design detail. Here's my guess. A (substantially) radially symmetric system comprising a wide-angle positive-short-focal-length first lens followed closely by a negative-short-focal-length whose diameter is small (thus covering a small range of angles, in the center field of view, from the first lens). A single central sensor behind the negative element is for telephoto images, while a collection of sensors distributed radially around the first lens and off axis capture wide angle images.
Imagine a low-index ball lens in contact with a thin high-index negative lens. That's the idea. I'm sure the real design uses multiple surfaces/elements for each lens, and I'm sure it's hyper-optimized. I'm interested to learn how close my guess is to reality.
Apologies for the complex wording to describe geometry.
Imagine a low-index ball lens in contact with a thin high-index negative lens. That's the idea. I'm sure the real design uses multiple surfaces/elements for each lens, and I'm sure it's hyper-optimized. I'm interested to learn how close my guess is to reality.
Apologies for the complex wording to describe geometry.