Image Morphing: A Literature Study

Image morphing has been the subject of much attention in recent years. It has proven to be a powerful visual effects tool in film and television, depicting the fluid transformation of one digital image into another. This paper reviews the growth of this field and describes recent advances in image morphing in terms of three areas: feature specification, warp generation methods, and transition control. These areas relate to the ease of use and quality of results. We will describe the role of radial basis functions, thin plate splines, energy minimization, and multilevel free-form deformations in advancing the state-of-the-art in image morphing. A comparison of various techniques for morphing one digital image in to another is made. We will compare various morphing techniques such as Feature based image morphing, Mesh and Thin Plate Splines based image morphing based on different attributes such as Computational Time, Visual Quality of Morphs obtained and Complexity involved in Selection of features. We will demonstrate the pros and cons of various techniques so as to allow the user to make an informed decision to suit his particular needs. Recent work on a generalized framework for morphing among multiple images will be described.