US 2020/0092475 A1 · APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR IMAGE ALIGNMENT

Abstract

Multiple images may be combined to obtain a composite image. Individual images may be obtained with different camera sensors and/or at different time instances. In order to obtain the composite image source images may be aligned in order to produce a seamless stitch. Source images may be characterized by a region of overlap. A disparity measure may be determined for pixels along a border region between the source images. A warp transformation may be determined using a refinement process configured to determine displacement of pixels of the border region based on the disparity. Pixel displacement at a given location may be constrained to direction configured tangential to an epipolar line corresponding to the location. The warp transformation may be propagated to pixels of the image. Spatial and/or temporal smoothing may be applied. In order to obtain refined solution, the warp transformation may be determined at multiple spatial scales.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system that obtains a composite image, the system comprising:

one or more physical processors configured by machine-readable instructions to:
obtain source images;
identify overlapping portions of the source images;
obtain a disparity measure based on an evaluation of pixels within the overlapping portions of the source images;
apply a transformation operation to one or more pixels within the overlapping portions of the source images to generate transformed source images, wherein the transformation operation is determined based on a discrete refinement and displaces the one or more pixels to reduce the disparity measure;
and
obtain the composite image based on the transformed source images.

4 more elements

A capture apparatus, comprising:

a first lens optically coupled to a first image sensor configured to obtain a first source image;
a second lens optically coupled to a second image sensor configured to obtain a second source image;
one or more physical processors in operable communication with the first image sensor and the second image sensor;
a non-transitory storage medium configured to store computer instructions which, when executed, cause the one or more physical processors to perform:
identifying a boundary region between the first source image and the second source image, the boundary region including overlapping portions of the first source image and the second source image;
obtaining a disparity measure based on an evaluation of pixels within the overlapping portions disposed at a given location within the boundary region, the given location having an epipolar line associated therewith;
and
applying a transformation operation to displace pixels within the boundary region along a direction tangential to the epipolar line for the given location, the transformation operation determined based on a discrete refinement;
wherein
the first lens is characterized by a first optical center location and the second lens is characterized by a second optical center location;
the epipolar line comprises a segment configured to connect the first optical center location, the second optical center location, and the given location;
and
the transformation operation reduces the disparity measure.

10 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Apparatus and methods for image alignment

Life of this patent

Apparatus and methods for image alignment

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20