Automatic Mosaicing with Super-Resolution Zoom

We describe mosaicing for a sequence of images acquired by a camera rotating about its centre. The novel contributions are in two areas. First, in the automation and estimation of image registration: images (60+) are registered under a full (8 degrees of freedom) homography; the registration is automatic and robust, and a maximum likelihood estimator is used. In particular the registration is consistent so that there are no accumulated errors over a sequence. This means that it is not a problem if the sequence loops back on itself. The second novel area is in enhanced resolution. A region of the mosaic can be viewed at a resolution higher than any of the original frames. It is shown that the degree of resolution enhancement is determined by a measure based on a matrix norm. A maximum likelihood solution is given, which also takes account of the errors in the estimated homographies. An improved MAP estimator is also developed. Results of both MLE and MAP estimation are included for sequences acquired by a camcorder and a CCD camera.