Parallax-Tolerant Image Stitching with Epipolar Displacement Field

Abstract: Image stitching with parallax is still a challenging task. Existing methods often struggle to maintain both the local and global structures of the image while reducing alignment artifacts and warping distortions. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that utilizes epipolar geometry to establish a warping technique based on the epipolar displacement field. Initially, the warping rule for pixels in the epipolar geometry is established through the infinite homography. Subsequently, the epipolar displacement field, which represents the sliding distance of the warped pixel along the epipolar line, is formulated by thin-plate splines based on the principle of local elastic deformation. The stitching result can be generated by inversely warping the pixels according to the epipolar displacement field. This method incorporates the epipolar constraints in the warping rule, which ensures high-quality alignment and maintains the projectivity of the panorama. Qualitative and quantitative comparative experiments demonstrate the competitiveness of the proposed method for stitching images with large parallax.