Image capture pattern optimization for panoramic photography

Abstract

Panoramic photography requires intensive operations of image stitching. A large quantity of images may lead to a rather expensive image stitching; while a sparse imaging may cause a poor-quality panorama due to the insufficient correlation between adjacent images. So, a good study for the balance between image quantity and image correlation may improve the efficiency and quality of panoramic photography. Therefore, in this work, we are motivated to present a novel approach to estimate the optimal image capture patterns for panoramic photography. We aim at the minimization of the image quantity which still preserves sufficient image correlation. We represent the image correlation as overlap area between the view range that can be separately observed from adjacent images. Moreover, a time-consuming imaging process of panoramic photography will result in a considerable illumination variation of the scene in images. Subsequently, the image stitching will be more challenged. To solve this problem, we design a series of imaging routines for our image capture patterns to preserve the content consistency, ensuring the generalization of our method to various cameras. Experimental results show that the proposed method can obtain the optimal image capture pattern in a very efficient manner. In these patterns, we can obtain a balanced image quantity but still achieve good results of panoramic photography.