Wide Parallax Image Stitching With Balanced Alignment-Naturalness

Parallax is a crucial factor that affects the quality of image stitching, particularly in complex scene images with wide camera baselines. Achieving precise alignment while maintaining natural visual aesthetics is a challenging task. Traditional stitching methods use fixed-grid partitioning and unif...

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Main Authors: Tao Song, Qian Li, Peiguo Hou, Ning Li, Wenhao Liu, Zeheng Xia
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11000324/
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author Tao Song
Qian Li
Peiguo Hou
Ning Li
Wenhao Liu
Zeheng Xia
author_facet Tao Song
Qian Li
Peiguo Hou
Ning Li
Wenhao Liu
Zeheng Xia
author_sort Tao Song
collection DOAJ
description Parallax is a crucial factor that affects the quality of image stitching, particularly in complex scene images with wide camera baselines. Achieving precise alignment while maintaining natural visual aesthetics is a challenging task. Traditional stitching methods use fixed-grid partitioning and uniform local projective transformations, which can lead to distortion and nonlinear stretching in scenes with varying depths and orientations. This article proposes a novel approach to wide parallax image stitching that balances alignment precision with visual naturalness. Our method employs superpixel segmentation to partition images into regions with consistent local projective content. Additionally, local projective matrices derived from the Multi-GS algorithm (more efficient RANSAC) are used to transform inliers, thereby enhancing the accuracy of each superpixel block’s projective fitting, innovatively utilizing the guided local projective transformation algorithm. Furthermore, global similarity transformation and the linearization of local projective matrices are utilized to adjust overall distortion, while the combination of local projective transformation with global similarity is employed to achieve a more natural result. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art methods in improving alignment accuracy and the natural visual quality in scenarios with wide parallax. The RMSE and straight-line preservation improved by about 1% and 2% compared to LPC, while external expansion distortion and angular distortion improved by about 20% and 16% compared to UDIS-D.
format Article
id doaj-art-23c24e736bf24712b3bfbb4b939ce329
institution Kabale University
issn 2169-3536
language English
publishDate 2025-01-01
publisher IEEE
record_format Article
series IEEE Access
spelling doaj-art-23c24e736bf24712b3bfbb4b939ce3292025-08-20T03:24:35ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-0113945389455210.1109/ACCESS.2025.356908011000324Wide Parallax Image Stitching With Balanced Alignment-NaturalnessTao Song0https://orcid.org/0009-0005-5766-3387Qian Li1Peiguo Hou2Ning Li3Wenhao Liu4https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5442-3068Zeheng Xia5Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, ChinaTianjin Electric Research Institute Ltd., Tianjin, ChinaYanshan University, Qinhuangdao, ChinaYanshan University, Qinhuangdao, ChinaYanshan University, Qinhuangdao, ChinaYanshan University, Qinhuangdao, ChinaParallax is a crucial factor that affects the quality of image stitching, particularly in complex scene images with wide camera baselines. Achieving precise alignment while maintaining natural visual aesthetics is a challenging task. Traditional stitching methods use fixed-grid partitioning and uniform local projective transformations, which can lead to distortion and nonlinear stretching in scenes with varying depths and orientations. This article proposes a novel approach to wide parallax image stitching that balances alignment precision with visual naturalness. Our method employs superpixel segmentation to partition images into regions with consistent local projective content. Additionally, local projective matrices derived from the Multi-GS algorithm (more efficient RANSAC) are used to transform inliers, thereby enhancing the accuracy of each superpixel block’s projective fitting, innovatively utilizing the guided local projective transformation algorithm. Furthermore, global similarity transformation and the linearization of local projective matrices are utilized to adjust overall distortion, while the combination of local projective transformation with global similarity is employed to achieve a more natural result. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art methods in improving alignment accuracy and the natural visual quality in scenarios with wide parallax. The RMSE and straight-line preservation improved by about 1% and 2% compared to LPC, while external expansion distortion and angular distortion improved by about 20% and 16% compared to UDIS-D.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11000324/Image stitchingparallaxsuperpixelprecise alignmentvisual naturalness
spellingShingle Tao Song
Qian Li
Peiguo Hou
Ning Li
Wenhao Liu
Zeheng Xia
Wide Parallax Image Stitching With Balanced Alignment-Naturalness
IEEE Access
Image stitching
parallax
superpixel
precise alignment
visual naturalness
title Wide Parallax Image Stitching With Balanced Alignment-Naturalness
title_full Wide Parallax Image Stitching With Balanced Alignment-Naturalness
title_fullStr Wide Parallax Image Stitching With Balanced Alignment-Naturalness
title_full_unstemmed Wide Parallax Image Stitching With Balanced Alignment-Naturalness
title_short Wide Parallax Image Stitching With Balanced Alignment-Naturalness
title_sort wide parallax image stitching with balanced alignment naturalness
topic Image stitching
parallax
superpixel
precise alignment
visual naturalness
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11000324/
work_keys_str_mv AT taosong wideparallaximagestitchingwithbalancedalignmentnaturalness
AT qianli wideparallaximagestitchingwithbalancedalignmentnaturalness
AT peiguohou wideparallaximagestitchingwithbalancedalignmentnaturalness
AT ningli wideparallaximagestitchingwithbalancedalignmentnaturalness
AT wenhaoliu wideparallaximagestitchingwithbalancedalignmentnaturalness
AT zehengxia wideparallaximagestitchingwithbalancedalignmentnaturalness