Patent ID: 8181876

Claim:
A method for aligning a second image of an object at a second time with a first image of the object at a first time, wherein the object experiences motion relative to an imager, which produces the first and second images, between the first and second times, the first and second images being formed of respective sets of pixels arranged horizontally and vertically in a pattern, the method operating on the pixels of the second image by performing a series of operations to affect an affine transformation, the method comprising: shifting the pixels of the second image vertically by a constant vertical offset; shifting the pixels of the second image horizontally by a constant horizontal offset; shearing the second image horizontally by a skew factor; shearing the second image vertically by a skew factor; scaling the second image horizontally by a horizontal scale factor; and scaling the second image vertically by a vertical scale factor, wherein at least two of the steps of shifting the pixels of the second image vertically, shifting the pixels of the second image horizontally, shearing the second image horizontally, shearing the second image vertically, scaling the second image horizontally, and scaling the second image vertically are performed by a single table look-up operation, and whereby the resulting second image at least approximately aligns with the first image and thereby compensates for the motion.