An Accurate Multi-Row Panorama Generation Using Multi-Point Joint Stitching

Most of the existing panorama generation tools require the input images to be captured along one direction, and yield a narrow strip panorama. To generate a large viewing field panorama, this paper proposes a multi-row panorama generation (MRPG) method. For a pan/tilt camera whose scanning path covers a wide range of horizontal and vertical views, the image frames in different views correspond to different coordinate benchmarks and different projections. And the image frame should not only be aligned with the continuous frames in timeline but also be aligned with other frames in spatial neighborhood even with long time intervals. For these problems, MRPG first designs an optimal scanning path to cover the large viewing field, and chooses the center frame as the reference frame to start to stitch. The stitching order of multi-frame is arranged in first-column and second-row to ensure a small alignment error. Moreover, MRPG proposes a multi-point joint stitching method to eliminate the seams and correct the distortions, which makes the current frame accurately integrated into the panoramic canvas from all directions. Experimental results show that MRPG can generate a more accurate panorama than other state-of-the-art image stitching methods, and give a better visual effect for a large viewing field panorama.