A Flexible Framework For Fusing Image Collections Into Panoramas

Panoramas create summary views of multiple images, which make them a valuable means of analyzing huge quantities of image and video data. This paper introduces the Ray Graph – a general framework for panorama construction. With rays as its vertices, the Ray Graph uses its edges to specify a set of coherency relationships among all input rays. Consequently, by using a set of simple graph traversal rules, a diverse set of panorama structures can be enumerated, which can be used to efficiently and robustly generate panoramic images from image collections. To demonstrate this framework, we first use it to recreate both 360 degree and street panoramas. We further introduce two new panorama models, the centipede panorama – a hybrid of 360 degree and street panoramas, and the storytelling panorama – a time encoding panorama. Finally, we demonstrate the flexibility of this framework by enabling interactive brushing of panoramic regions for removal of undesired features such as occlusions and moving objects.

Wathsala Widanagamaachchi, Paul Rosen, and Valerio Pascucci. A Flexible Framework For Fusing Image Collections Into Panoramas. XXVI Conference on Graphics, Patterns and Images, 2013.

@inproceedings{widanagamaachchi2013flexible,
  title = {A Flexible Framework for Fusing Image Collections into Panoramas},
  author = {Widanagamaachchi, Wathsala and Rosen, Paul and Pascucci, Valerio},
  booktitle = {XXVI Conference on Graphics, Patterns and Images},
  series = {SIBGRAPI},
  pages = {195--202},
  year = {2013},
  note = {Best Paper Award.},
  abstract = {Panoramas create summary views of multiple images, which make them a
    valuable means of analyzing huge quantities of image and video data. This paper
    introduces the Ray Graph - a general framework for panorama construction. With rays as
    its vertices, the Ray Graph uses its edges to specify a set of coherency relationships
    among all input rays. Consequently, by using a set of simple graph traversal rules, a
    diverse set of panorama structures can be enumerated, which can be used to efficiently
    and robustly generate panoramic images from image collections.  To demonstrate this
    framework, we first use it to recreate both 360 degree and street panoramas. We further
    introduce two new panorama models, the centipede panorama - a hybrid of 360 degree and
    street panoramas, and the storytelling panorama - a time encoding panorama. Finally, we
    demonstrate the flexibility of this framework by enabling interactive brushing of
    panoramic regions for removal of undesired features such as occlusions and moving
    objects.}
}