ISP 图像对齐笔记（三）：Parametric Image Alignment Using Enhanced Correlation Coefficient Maximization

ISP 图像对齐笔记（三）：Parametric Image Alignment Using Enhanced
Correlation Coefficient Maximization

前言

这篇文章巳图像匹配经典文章，在阅读翻译文档的同时，我这里对公式进行简单的推导，里面有翻译或者理解错的，还望见谅并恳请讨论并予以指正，欢迎广泛交流

这里顺带吐槽下csdn的公式编辑，太特么难受了，这么大公司竟然没有自己的好用公式编辑器。。。。有点打算放弃csdn转到知乎

一、摘要

Abstract—In this work, we propose the use of a modified version of the correlation coefficient as a performance criterion for the image alignment problem. The proposed modification has the desirable characteristic of being invariant with respect to photometric distortions. Since the resulting similarity measure is a nonlinear function of the warp parameters, we develop two iterative schemes for its maximization, one based on the forward additive approach and the second on the inverse compositional method. As is customary in iterative optimization, in each iteration, the nonlinear objective function is approximated by an alternative expression for which the corresponding optimization is simple. In our case, we propose an efficient approximation that leads to a closed-form solution (per iteration) which is of low computational complexity, the latter property being particularly strong in our inverse version. The proposed schemes are tested against the Forward Additive Lucas-Kanade and the Simultaneous Inverse Compositional (SIC) algorithm through simulations. Under noisy conditions and photometric distortions, our forward version achieves more accurate alignments and exhibits faster convergence, whereas our inverse version has similar performance as the SIC algorithm but at a lower computational complexity.
【翻译与理解】
这篇文章中介绍了一种用相关系数（correlation coefficient）作为图像对齐的问题的评判标准（criterion），该评判标准在光度失真（photometric distortions）的情况下具有良好的不变性。同时，两幅图像的相似度比较过程将是一个非线性的 warp参数组。这里作者提出了两种迭代求解过程：一种是正向求解迭代，一种是通过逆过程方式求解 。按照正常的非线性求解套路，这里的非线性过程会被优化为对应的线性过程求解。作者为了求解框架的正确性，用了前向加法求解（forward addtitive）也就是光流法和逆向分解法，即便是在噪声+光度失真的情况下，前向求解方法表现得更精确而逆向求解法表现出的计算资源消耗更小。

二、引论

THE parametric image alignment problem consists of finding atransformation which aligns two image profiles. The profiles can
either be entire images, as in the image registration problem [1],[2], or subimages, as in the region tracking [3], [4], [5], motion
estimation [6], [7], [8], [9], and stereo correspondence [10], [11] problems. In image registration, the alignment problem needs to
be solved only once, whereas, in region tracking, a template image has to be matched over a sequence of images. Finally, in motion estimation and stereo correspondences, the goal is to find the correspondence for all image points in a pair of images.
【翻译与理解】
图像对齐问题一般都是由寻找两个图片特征并对齐特征的一些列问题组成的。这个特征可以是全图片的，例如图像配准（image registration），或者子图对齐，例如区域跟踪（region tracking）、运动估计（motion estimation）以及3D映射（stereo correspondence）。在图像配准问题中，对齐问题只需要解决一次，而对于区域跟踪问题，一个模板图像需要在一系列图像中进行匹配。最后，在运动估计和立体对应中，目标是找到一对图像中所有图像点的对应关系。

The alignment problem can be seen as a mapping between the coordinate systems of two images; therefore, the first step toward its solution is the suitable selection of a geometric transformation that adequately models this mapping. Existing models are basically parametric [12] and their exact form heavily depends on the specific application and the strategy selected to solve the alignment problem [3], [13]. The class of affine transformations and, in particular, several special cases (as pure translation) have been the center of attention in many applications [1], [2], [3], [4], [6], [10], [11], [13]. Alternative approaches rely on projective transformations (homography) and, more generally, on nonlinear transformations [5], [13], [14], [15].
【翻译与理解】
因此对齐问题可以被抽象为连个图片的坐标系映射（mapping）。因此问题的第一步是找到一个合理的图形学变换模型可以完美的描述这种映射（mapping）。目前已有模型简单（basically，我这里意译为“简单的”）并且很大程度上依赖于具体的应用和具体的策略。而仿射变换（calls of affine transformations），特别的，则是很多变换的核心过程，可选的的过程依赖于投射变换（projective transformations 作者也指出是 homography）或者组合一些非线性的变化（nonlinear transformations）

Once the geometric parametric transformation has been defined, the alignment problem reduces itself to a parameter estimation
problem. Therefore, the second step toward its solution consists of coming up with an appropriate performance measure, that is, an objective function. The latter, when optimized, will yield the optimum parameter estimates. Most existing approaches adopt
measures that rely on lp norms of the error between either the whole image profiles (pixel-based techniques) or a specific feature of the image profiles (feature-based techniques) [12]. Clearly, the l2 norm is by far the most popular selection so far [1], [3], [6], [7], [9], [10], [13], [15], [16]. The l2-based objective function is usually referred to as the Sum-Squared-Differences (SSD) measure and the corresponding optimization problem is known as the SSD technique [5], [9]. Variations on this approach have been proposed for the important problem of optical flow determination [5], [7], [17], and robust versions that can combat outliers were developed in [18].
【翻译与理解】
一旦图形变换被定义好，对齐问题就一变成一个参数估计问题（parameter estimation problem），因此解决问题的第二步则是
提出一个合理的效果判定（performance measure）也就是目标函数（objective function）。接着，会对齐进行优化并产生相关优化参数。大多数已有的方法都是依赖于用 lp-范式（lp-norms）描述要么基于像素级的整幅图的图像（image profiles）要么就是基于具体特证来描述图像。明显的，l-2 范数是大家常用的。使用l-2 范数的目标函数可用SSD（sum-squared-differences）方法以及已有的优化手段进行优化，也就是方法很成熟。相关的变体方法（variations on this approach）在求解光流问题已经被提出，以及该方法中比较稳定的版本也已提出。

For the optimum parameter estimation, all existing objective functions require nonlinear optimization techniq