Optimized hierarchical block matching for fast and accurate image registration

Recently the camera resolution has been highly increased, and the registration between high-resolution images is computationally expensive even by using hierarchical block matching. This paper presents a novel optimized hierarchical block matching algorithm in which the computational cost is minimized for the scale factor and the number of levels in the hierarchy. The algorithm is based on a generalized version of the Gaussian pyramid and its inter-layer transformation of coordinates. The search window size is properly determined to resolve possible error propagation in hierarchical block matching. In addition, we also propose a simple but effective method for aligning colors between two images based on color distribution adjustment as a preprocessing. Simplifying a general color imaging model, we show much of the color inconsistency can be compensated by our color alignment method. The experimental results show that the optimized hierarchical block matching and color alignment methods increase the block matching speed and accuracy, and thus improve image registration. Using our algorithm, it takes about 128 s for overall registration process with a pair of images in 5 mega-pixel resolution. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.