Automatic stitching system for images of plane-like scenes

Traditional panoramic image stitching, which refers to single-viewpoint cylindrical or spherical panorama generation, has two crucial limitations when it is used for plane-like scenes. One is the severe distortion induced by warping, and the other is that the optical center of camera must be fixed. However, existing stitching methods designed for plane-like scenes also have some drawbacks, such as ghosting and limited adaptability. In this paper, an Automatic Stitching System for Images of Plane-like Scenes (AS-SIPS) is proposed to overcome the limitations and drawbacks. In ASSIPS, input images are taken with a handheld camera which is translated along the scene. Images are firstly used to estimate their camera poses and calculate the sparse structure of the scene. Then a dominant plane is found out and all the input images are warped according to the plane. Finally, warped images are aligned incrementally with similarity model and a simplified multi-band blending algorithm is used in the process of image blending. Results of ASSIPS for various plane-like scenes prove that it can provide visually attractive panoramic images which look like taken with the direction perpendicular to the scene, and effectively eliminate stitching seams, blurs and ghosts.