Effect of differences on image contrast value to the stitched image.

Image stitching is a promising method for developing longer digital x-ray radiographs without sacrificing image resolution. This paper presents our effort on developing the image stitching method based on the SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) algorithm and the template matching method. Digital radiographic images generally have different contrast and brightness values that need to be adjusted in the image stitching procedure. In this paper, research was carried out related to the effect of differences in contrast values on image stitching results. The reference image, which is a thorax image, is cut into two parts and one of its part is changed the contrast values, to then be merged and stitched into one single complete image. The process of stitching images that has been carried out uses the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) method and key point matching. The results of the stitched image are then analyzed using digital image correlation (DIC) values. The results of digital correlation coefficient value obtained from the DIC analysis is close to 1 for all variations in contrast. This shows that the image stitching result is similar and almost identical to the reference image. Therefore, with the method used, it can be obtained a longer image stitching result even though it has differences in contrast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]