Physical Panoramic Pyramid and Noise Sensitivity in Pyramids

Multi-resolution techniques have been used in a wide range of vision applications. Unfortunately, the costly operation of building a proper pyramid strongly reduces its value as a tool for reducing computational cost. A new approach, physical panoramic pyramid, is introduced in this paper. Physical panoramic pyramid measures multiple resolutions simultaneously resulting in multi-resolution panoramic images. No computation is needed to construct these image pyramids. We also analyze general noise sensitivity in image pyramids, including the interaction of the loss of resolution, random background noise and aliasing noise. The paper also discusses the issue of indexing between the neighboring layer, the viewpoint variation and the applications of the physical panoramic pyramid.