How to Make Mosaics from Movies and Data University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Computer Vision Laboratory 1. Data Requirements: -A Quicktime movie clip of the region to be mosaiked. -If a Geo-Corrected mosaic is desired, a Flight Data File is needed, with data corresponding to the movie clip 2. Program Requirements: FrameMaker.exe - this program was written with the help of Apple QuickTime Library Functions, and will extract every frame of a QT movie and store them in a BitMap file. This program also produces an ordered listing of every BitMap file name created in a text file (extension .in), which is required for the Mosaic program. Be sure to follow the instructions of the program - it is a console application, and requires detailed keyboard entries of file paths and file names. - **** Because this was written with QT libraries, it is necessary to have Quicktime FULLY installed on the same machine as the program. Mosaiker.exe - this is the main mosaic-generating program. This program creates mosaics in two large steps. First, it MATCHES each pair of images, and records their relation to each other. Then it MOSAICS all the images together. If a "Geo-Corrected" mosaic is selected, the recorded track is 'warped' to match the geo-track computed from the geographic information captured during the flight. This program will only work with bitmap images, and produces the mosaics in bitmap form. 3. Instructions: Step 1: Extract the frames Ensure enough disk space is available, and run the FrameMaker program. Enter the FULL path name of the movie clip, starting with the Drive letter (ex. C:). If you do not, Quicktime cannot open the movie (don't forget the .mov!). Enter 'f' for frames, and y/n for horita data. (Horita data is a geographical video signal that was recorded onto the audio track, rather than displayed on the video. It sounds like machine language when the movie is played with audio). If yes is entered, the name of each BitMap image will consist of the extracted date and timecode of the frame. Enter the FULL path of the location where the frames are to be written, starting with the Drive letter, and ending with a '\'. NOTE: Try and make this the final location of the frames, because the full path name is recorded in the *.in file. If these frames are moved, this file will have to be corrected, so the Mosaiker program can find these frames. The number of frames will be displayed, as well as a skip option. To extract every frame, enter 0. To extract every third frame, enter 2. NOTE: the quality of the mosaic will deteriorate as the frames get farther apart. To generate a good mosaic, extract all the frames. Now the program will begin executing. TIP: It is a good idea to create a new folder in the directory where the frames are, to work from and put the results in. Place the *.in file, which is a listing of every frame, in this new folder. This file is an input to the mosaiker program. Step 2: Mosaic If a geo-mosaic is desired, place a copy of the meta-file that contains the relevant geo-data in the same directory as the *.in file, and rename it *.in.full.txt, to match the sequence file *.in. This is how the mosaic program finds this file, by appending '.full.txt' to the sequence file name. NOTE: If this data contains too many zeros, there may not be enough information to correctly adjust the mosaic. If this happens the final mosaic may not look good. The quality of a geo-corrected mosaic depends directly on the quality of the flight data! Start the Mosaiker program. Click on the far left button underneath 'File', or select File->Open_Sequence_File. Find the *.in file and click Open. The first step is to match all the images. Click the blue-bordered "play" button to begin matching. Each image will appear in the left window, and red lines will flash over the image. These red lines are 'motion vectors' computed from the two frames. If you have a good monitor with a high brightness setting, the difference between the two frames will appear in the right window. Matching only has to be run once on a set of data. Once matching is done, a 'Mosaic Option' panel will appear. Here you can select the type of mosaic (free or geo-corrected). Other options are: Smooth Track: Highly recommended for geo-corrected, where the flight data can be jittery. Multiple Mosaics: For generating stereo pairs. Draw Track: This will create a copy of the mosaic with a red track plotting the centerpoints of each frame. For a geo-corrected mosaic, a green track showing the free centers will also be plotted, to see the difference. Draw Profile: This will attach a red altitude profile to the long side of the mosaic. Clicking OK will start the mosaic build process. When completed, the mosaic will be displayed. If the track or profile was selected, you will be prompted to save that image (the original mosaic is automatically saved as tmp$$$$$.bmp, and if selected, the stereo mosaics are also automatically saved). Extras: To create another mosaic, select Options->Mosaic_Option. The Mosaic option panel will reappear. To view the frames (in a stuttered movie fashion) Click the 'Play Video' button (second from the left) or select File->Play_Video. To open a bitmap, click the 'Open BMP' button (the shadowed person - far right) or select File->Open_BMP_file. To stop matching, or the 'play video' feature, click the blue-bordered 'stop' button (second from right).