Focal length estimation method and apparatus for construction of panoramic mosaic images
First Claim
1. A method for aligning plural overlapping images useful in constructing a mosaic, comprising:
- computing a planar perspective transformation between each overlapping pair of said images;
computing, from said planar perspective transformation, a focal length of each image of said pair;
computing from said focal length of each image a focal length transformation;
computing a rotational transformation for each of said pair of images whereby a combination of said rotational transformation and said focal length transformation relates the respective image to a three-dimensional coordinate system; and
reducing registration errors between said pair of images by incrementally deforming said rotational transformation of one of said pair of images.
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Abstract
The focal length estimation method and apparatus claimed in this application aligns plural overlapping images with one another for constructing an image mosaic. This is accomplished by computing a planar perspective transformation between each overlapping pair of the images, computing from the planar perspective transformation a focal length of each image of the pair, computing from the focal length of each image a focal length transformation, computing a rotational transformation for each of the pair of images whereby a combination of the rotational transformation and the focal length transformation relates the respective image to a three-dimensional coordinate system. Registration errors between the pair of images are reduced by incrementally deforming the rotational transformation of one of the pair of images. The planar perspective transform is a matrix of warp elements, and the focal length is computed as a function of the warp elements, the function being derivable by constraining a first two rows or the first two columns of the matrix to have the same norm and to be orthogonal. The focal length of one image of a pair of images is found by applying the constraint on the matrix columns, while the focal length of the other image of the pair is found by applying the constraint on the matrix rows
221 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A method for aligning plural overlapping images useful in constructing a mosaic, comprising:
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computing a planar perspective transformation between each overlapping pair of said images; computing, from said planar perspective transformation, a focal length of each image of said pair; computing from said focal length of each image a focal length transformation; computing a rotational transformation for each of said pair of images whereby a combination of said rotational transformation and said focal length transformation relates the respective image to a three-dimensional coordinate system; and reducing registration errors between said pair of images by incrementally deforming said rotational transformation of one of said pair of images. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. Apparatus for use in aligning a set of plural images from which a mosaic image can be produced, said apparatus comprising:
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a processor; memory having executable instructions stored therein; and wherein the processor, in response to the instructions stored in the memory; computes a planar perspective transformation between each overlapping pair of said images; computes, from said planar perspective transformation, a focal length of each image of said pair; computes from said focal length of each image a focal length transformation; computes a rotational transformation for each of said pair of images whereby a combination of said rotational transformation and said focal length transformation relates the respective image to a three-dimensional coordinate system; and reduces registration errors between said pair of images by incrementally deforming said rotational transformation of one of said pair of images. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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Specification