An Unsupervised Image Stitching Framework via Joint Iterative Optimization of Deformation Estimation, Feature...

Image stitching is a computational technique designed to align and seamlessly fuse multiple overlapping images into a single panoramic image with an extended field of view. It plays a critical role in diverse domains, including mobile photography, autonomous navigation, and visual perception systems. However, most conventional image stitching pipelines implicitly assume that the input images have been pre-corrected for geometric distortions, particularly radial distortion inherent to wide-angle and fisheye lenses. This assumption often fails in practice, as many consumer-grade cameras lack built-in correction or calibration support. Consequently, applying standard image stitching methods to the uncorrected imagery frequently degrades feature correspondence reliability and introduces visible geometric misalignments and seam discontinuities in the final panorama. To overcome these limitations, this paper introduces a task-driven joint iterative optimization framework for image stitching that unifies unsupervised radial distortion correction, distortion-aware feature registration, and seam-aware blending within a single cohesive optimization objective. Specifically, lens distortion parameters are explicitly modeled as learnable variables and embedded into both the geometric registration and seam optimization sub-problems. An efficient closed-loop optimization strategy is then employed to jointly refine distortion parameters, homography estimates, and optimal seam paths in an alternating, mutually reinforcing manner. Implementation-wise, we first propose a calibration-free initial radial distortion estimation method which leverages intrinsic image gradients and epipolar consistency to provide physically plausible initialization for subsequent optimization. During iteration, distortion parameters are progressively refined by integrating robust geometric constraints derived from current feature matches (via RANSAC-based consensus filtering) with photometric consistency cues. Extensive experiments on multiple public benchmarks featuring pronounced radial distortion demonstrate that our method achieves superior stitching fidelity using metrics including PSNR and SSIM. It also confirms enhanced feature matching stability, which outperforms both distortion-agnostic approaches and two-stage pipelines that decouple distortion correction from registration. Furthermore, comprehensive ablation studies quantitatively and qualitatively validate the functional necessity and synergistic contribution of each core module, confirming the design rationale and effectiveness of the proposed joint optimization architecture.