Patent ID: 8271251

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for processing a series of overlapping optical images, comprising: flattening a first optical image and a second optical image; aligning overlapping regions of said first optical image and said second optical image, wherein said aligning comprises: determining an initial offset estimate of alignment between said first optical image and said second optical image based on initial scale and angle values; calculating a pair of sub-offsets to determine an error of said initial offset estimate comprising identifying a location of the best correlation (peak) within data patterns of a first sub-image and a second sub-image, wherein said first sub-image and said second sub-image are regions of said first optical image and said second optical image, respectively, that overlap as determined by said initial offset estimate, said identifying comprising the ordered steps of: 1) copying said first sub-image into a first work area; 2) copying said second sub-image into a second work area; 3) calculating an average intensity and normalizing pixel intensity values within each of said first sub-image and said second sub-image; 4) adding a pad-area along a first edge of each of said first sub-image and said second sub-image; 5) adding a fill-area along a second edge of each of said first sub-image and said second sub-image, wherein said second edge is adjacent to said first edge on each of said first sub-image and said second sub-image; 6) filling each of said pad-areas and said fill-areas with predetermined values in a predetermined manner; and 7) calculating a Cross Correlation Function for each image of said first sub-image and said second sub-image, comprising the steps of: a) transforming said image data from intensity to frequency space to produce transform coefficients; b) multiplying, in a point-wise fashion, said transform coefficients to produce point-wise multiplication results; c) frequency whitening said point-wise multiplication results to produce frequency whitening results; d) applying a Laplacian filter to said frequency whitening results to produce Laplacian filter results; and e) transforming said Laplacian filter results from frequency to intensity space to produce said Cross-Correlation Function, wherein said Cross Correlation Function provides said pair of sub-offsets; and producing adjusted element and line distances for more precise alignment of said overlapping regions of said first optical image and said second optical image by adding said sub-offsets to said initial offset estimate; overwriting and merging said first optical image and said second optical image to create a merged image, wherein said order of said steps of said flattening and said overlapping are order-independent when both of said steps occur prior to said-overwriting and merging; and displaying said merged image on a user interface.