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Stitching

Stitching is a term mainly used in digital photography for assembling several partial pictures to one image. There are two main appli-cations:

Within the image circle of the lens, several pictures are taken that are vertically and/or horizontally shifted with an overlap-ping by only a few millimeters. These partial pictures are then processed to a full image by software. In this way and as an example, a 39-MP digital back can produce in a fourfold stitch a picture with more than 120 MP RAW. Such quantities of data are needed where extreme resolutions are required and no moving objects have to be recorded. The more the distances of the various objects within a picture differ, the more important it is that the lens should be left unmoved when stitching in order to avoid stereo-effects. Those who feel that they will never need stitching, will not need to have such refinements on their camera. For all others, a critical look at this characteristic of a camera is recommended.

By turning the camera around its own vertical axis and in the nodal point of the lens (or entrance pupil/no-parallax point - possible with any accuracy only with a tripod, of course), overlapping panoramic pictures up to 360° (and beyond) can be produced by stitching (cylindrical or spherical projections for use in 3D applications).