Registering Conventional Images with Low Resolution Panoramic Images

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of registering high-resolution, small field-of-view images with low-resolution panoramic images provided by an panoramic catadioptric video sensor. Such systems may find application in surveillance and telepresence systems that require a large field of view and high resolution at selected locations. Although image registration has been studied in more conventional applications, the problem of registering panoramic and conventional video has not previously been addressed, and this problem presents unique challenges due to (i) the extreme differences in resolution between the sensors (more than a 16:1 linear resolution ratio in our application), and (ii) the resolution inhomogeneity of panoramic images. The main contributions of this paper are as follows. First, we introduce our foveated panoramic sensor design. Second, we describe an automatic and near real-time registration between the two image streams. This registration is based on minimizing the intensity discrepancy allowing the direct recovery of both the geometric and the photometric transforms. Registration examples using the developed methods are presented.