Electronic Image Alignment: Implementation And Applications To Imaging System Design

A new technique has been developed for geometrically rectifying images to subpixel accuracy in real time through high fidelity resampling. This technique permits significant simplification and cost reduction for a remote sensing system by relaxing the optical/mechanical alignment tolerances by about two orders of magnitude. A pipelined resampling processor has been built whose small size, weight, and power consumption permit it to be used on board a spacecraft or other vehicle. The high throughput of the processor prevents data logjams and permits the use of resampling kernels with better MTF and phase linearity than previously practical. A new design criterion that produces improved uniformity of MTF in the final image has been identified for the resampling kernels. These improvements over conventional resampling techniques result in improved data quality delivered to the end user and offer opportunities for streamlined data distribution. This technique and processor can also be applied to image motion compensation, data set merging, man-in-the-loop image warping, and image motion generation.