An effective consistency correction and blending method for camera-array-based microscopy imaging

Camera-array-based microscopy imaging is an effective scheme to satisfy the requirements of wide field of view, high spatial resolution and real-time imaging simultaneously. However, with the increasing number of cameras and expansion of field of view, the nonlinear camera response, vignetting of camera lens, ununiformity of illumination system, and the low overlapping ratio all lower the quality of microscopic image stitching and blending. In this paper, we propose an image consistency correction and blending method for 5 × 7 camera-array-based 0.17-gigapixel microscopic images. Firstly, we establish an image consistency correction model. Then, we obtain the response functions and compensation factors. Next, we restore captured images based on above model. Finally, we adopt an improved alpha-blending method to stitch and blend images of multiple fields of view. Experimental results show that our proposed method eliminates the inconsistency and seams among stitched images effectively.