[Insight-users] 2D/3D Image stitching with itk

[Luis Ibanez]

Hi Adrian,

We don't have specific examples on how to do stitching but we have used
ITK for this task, in particular for doing 3D stitching in confocal
microscopy applications.


   "How much overlap you need ?"

    This is is a very gray question...
    so it gets a gray answer...

    It depends on how much details there are in the borders
    of your images and how specific those details are.
    The image metric will have to be computed using only a
    band on the border of the image, so if that band is almost
    empty, you are in trouble. If the band is rich in texture
    and large structures that have non-symmetrical shapes,
    you will have better chances of registering the images.


Yes,
the ITK registration framework is suitable for performing stitching,
you should start by paying a lot of attention to:

    a) Selecting a FixedImageRegion restricted to the potential
       border of the FixedImage that overlaps the MovingImage
    b) Verify that the image reported correct Physical space origin.
    b) Provide a good initialization for the Transform.


Stitching images of 512x512x512 actually becomes registering
images of 20x512x512 (e.g. assuming that the overlapping regions
turned out to be about 20 pixels wide).

What is your visual estimation of the current image overlap width ?

Note that you may have you image acquisition protocol in order to
provide overlapping regions of decent size. E.g. 2 pixels of overlap
will not do the trick...

Registering these images should take about 1 minute in a modern
desktop computer.


    Regards,


       Luis


-------------------
Adrian John wrote:
> I only have little experience with itk and would like to stitch 
> overlapping 2D Images to a single 2D panorama image and 3D volume blocks 
> to a single 3D panorama volume block.
> Concerning this matter I have some questions:
> - Are any examples available?
> - How much overlap I need for a reliable result?
> - Is the itk registration framework suitable for image stitching or 
> should i better try feature based approaches such as SIFT/SURF?
> - If there are no examples available it would be nice if somebody with 
> more experience could give me small hint which itk classes I can use for 
> this task.
> - Is it a question if seconds or minutes to stitch two  512x512x512 
> volume blocks with itk?
>  
> Thanks a lot and best regards
> Adrian
> 
> 
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