Perspective correction of panoramic images created by parallel motion stitching

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of correcting the perspective distortion in panoramic images created by parallel motion stitching. The distortion is revealed by lines that appear to converge at the infinity, but are actually parallel. A camera cart shoots from multi-viewpoints aiming a parallel motion to the scene that is photographed. The perspective effect arises on panoramas while stitching several images taken from the camera, slightly panning in both directions between shots along the motion path. In this paper, we propose a solution to handle different camera translation motions and be able to stitch together images with a high-level of similarity, also having repetition patterns along a vast continuity of elements belonging to the scene. The experimental tests were performed with real data obtained from supermarket shelves, with the goal of maintaining the correct amount of product items on the resulting panorama. After applying the perspective correction in the input images, to reduce cumulative registration errors during stitching, it is possible to extract more information about the similarity between consecutive images so that matching mistakes are minimized.