Image Stitching based on Feature Extraction Techniques: A Survey

Image stitching (Mosaicing) is considered as an active research area in computer vision and computer graphics. Image stitching is concerned with combining two or more images of the same scene into one high resolution image which is called panoramic image. Image stitching techniques can be categorized into two general approaches: direct and feature based techniques. Direct techniques compare all the pixel intensities of the images with each other, whereas feature based techniques aim to determine a relationship between the images through distinct features extracted from the processed images. The last approach has the advantage of being more robust against scene movement, faster, and has the ability to automatically discover the overlapping relationships among an unordered set of images. The purpose of this paper is to present a survey about the feature based image stitching. The main components of image stitching will be described. A framework of a complete image stitching system based on feature based approaches will be introduced. Finally, the current challenges of image stitching will be discussed.