A real-time image stitching method based on memory space conversion

To meet the requirement of real-time processing, an image stitching method based on memory space conversion is proposed. In this method, two banks in a DDR2 SDRAM are used for storing image data alternately to realize the image stitching with image translation and rotation in hardware. The store addresses of two images are calculated based on the given stitching parameters and Bresenham algorithm. This algorithm results in smaller calculation and lower implementation cost. An arbiter scheme is proposed to meet the strict timing requirements of memory writing and reading. To ensure the timing synchronization of visual information from two image sensors, a judge module is used to determine which image should be stored first. Finally the systematic circuit simulation is conducted and the simulation results are compared with the mathematical model. Experimental results show that the proposed method not only avoids the multiplication, but also reduces the addition by 93.75%. It can improve the computation efficiency and decrease the complexity of hardware circuit on the basis of guaranteeing the image quality.