Image Stitching Engine

Guide to panorama creation, homography, and blending techniques.

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Topics Covered

  • Stitcher Class - High-level panorama API
  • Feature Matching - SIFT vs ORB, BFMatcher vs FLANN
  • Homography - RANSAC estimation, image warping
  • Blending - Alpha, feather, multi-band techniques
  • Projections - Planar, cylindrical, spherical

Tutorial Files

File Description
01_panorama.py High-level Stitcher API, basic manual stitch
02_manual_stitching.py Step-by-step pipeline: features, matching, RANSAC, warping
03_blending_techniques.py Blending comparison: none, alpha, feather, multi-band
04_cylindrical_pano.py Cylindrical/spherical projections, wide panoramas

Key Concepts

Stitching Pipeline

Feature Detection → Feature Matching → Homography → Warping → Blending

Blending Methods

Method Quality Speed Best For
No blending Poor Fast Preview only
Alpha Medium Fast Similar exposure
Feather Good Medium General use
Multi-band Best Slow Professional quality

Projection Types

Projection Use Case
Planar Small rotations (<90 deg)
Cylindrical 360 degree horizontal panoramas
Spherical Full 360 x 180 degree VR content

Key Functions

# High-level API
stitcher = cv2.Stitcher_create(cv2.Stitcher_PANORAMA)
status, panorama = stitcher.stitch(images)

# Manual pipeline
H, mask = cv2.findHomography(src_pts, dst_pts, cv2.RANSAC, 5.0)
warped = cv2.warpPerspective(img, H, (width, height))

# Blending
blender = cv2.detail.MultiBandBlender()
blender = cv2.detail.FeatherBlender()

# Projections
warper = cv2.PyRotationWarper('cylindrical', focal_length)