Adaptive block-based approach to image stabilization

Abstract

The objective of image stabilization is to prevent image blurring caused by the relative motion between the camera and the scene during the image integration time. In this paper we propose a software approach to image stabilization based on capturing and fusing multiple short exposed image frames of the same scene. Due to their short exposure, the individual frames are noisy, but they are less corrupted by motion blur than it would be a single long exposed frame. The proposed fusion method is designed such that to compensate for the misalignment between the individual frames, and to prevent the blur caused by object motion in front of the camera during the multi-frame image acquisition. Various natural images acquired with camera phones have been used to evaluate the proposed image stabilization system. The results reveal the ability of the system to improve the image quality by simulating longer exposure times. In addition the system has the ability to reduce the effect of noise and outliers present in the individual short exposed frames.