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Image Stabilizer

What does it do?

This plugin stabilizes jittery image stacks using the Lucas-Kanade algorithm. It supports both grayscale and color images.

How does it work?

It uses the currently shown slice in an image stack as the initial reference, or “template”; It estimates the geometrical transformation needed to best align each of the other slices with the “template”. The estimation and alignment are performed using the Lucas-Kanade algorithm; Once a slice is aligned, the “template” will be updated on the fly using the formula:

new_template = a * old_template + (1 - a) * newly_aligned_slice

where a is the “template update coefficient” that can be adjusted when the plugin is run.

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To process very large image stacks, import the stack with the “Use Virtual Stack” option enabled. The plugin will prompt you for an output directory to store the stabilized image sequence.

Change log

  • 2008/02/07: First version

  • 2008/02/10: Optimized for speed using gradient pyramids

  • 2008/02/12: Performed further speed optimizations and bug fixes

  • 2008/02/14: Added support for affine transformation

  • 2008/03/15: Made user interface improvements

  • 2008/05/02: Added support for macro recordering (thanks to Christophe Leterrier at univmed.fr)

  • 2009/01/11: Added support for logging transformation coefficients (can be reapplied to another stack using Image Stabilizer Log Applier)

  • 2009/01/11: The stabilization process can be interrupted by pressing ‘ESC’ or by closing the image

  • 2009/01/20: Fixed a runtime error when the user does not select the Log_Transformation_Coefficients checkbox (thanks to Nico Stuurman at UCSF)

  • 2009/06/12: Fixed a bug that affected 32-bit float input images (thanks to Derek Bailey)

Reference

K. Li, “The image stabilizer plugin for ImageJ,” https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kangli/code/Image_Stabilizer.html, February, 2008.

License

Copyright (C) 2008-2009 Kang Li. All rights reserved.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose without fee is hereby granted, provided that this entire notice is included in all copies of any software which is or includes a copy or modification of this software and in all copies of the supporting documentation for such software. Any for profit use of this software is expressly forbidden without first obtaining the explicit consent of the author.

THIS SOFTWARE IS BEING PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY. IN PARTICULAR, THE AUTHOR DOES NOT MAKE ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND CONCERNING THE MERCHANTABILITY OF THIS SOFTWARE OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.