Formation of a panoramic image of the inner surface of the pipe

Abstract

Background. Visual non-destructive testing of the inner surface of pipes is an important aspect in their production and operation. A defect detected and corrected in a timely manner can significantly reduce the number of defects in production and prevent various emergency incidents during operation. Formation of a complete panoramic image of the inner surface of pipes suitable for quality analysis is an urgent and sought-after task that can be solved using computer vision systems. Aim. This work is the research and development of television methods for forming a complete panoramic image of the inner surface of a pipe, which can be analyzed to search for defects. Methods. To form a cylindrical panoramic image, mathematical models for the formation of an equidistant projection of spherical images obtained using a fisheye lens were used. For high-quality stitching of the resulting frames, digital image processing methods were used, including brightness and contrast transformations, and searching for special points using the MSER algorithm. Theoretical results are verified by full-scale modeling. Results. The result of this work is an algorithm for stitching frames of a video sequence generated by a television camera with a fisheye optical system, uniformly moved along the longitudinal axis of the pipe, into a single panoramic image of the internal surface. Conclusion. The algorithm ensures the formation of a high-quality image of a full panorama of the inner surface of the pipes with the absence of brightness artifacts.