Gimp Plug-in for "Image Registration"

https://gimp-image-reg.sourceforge.io/

Last update: 2021-10-07

This is an implementation of the inverse compositional image registration algorithm for Gimp. Image registration, also known as image alignment, is the process of transforming a given image to achieve a best match with another image. The need for such a tool is given in situations where you want to combine two or more images which are similar, but geometrically do not have a perfect match.

A typical use is the combination of 2 or 3 photos in HDR methods. Unless you use a stable tripod, the source images will always be slightly out of alignment, so the very first step will be to re-align the images. The alignment step is normally built into dedicated HDR software, but for doing simple HDR (using for example Gimp's layer masks), you'll need to align the source images yourself, and this is where this plug-in can be helpful.

A step by step guide for creating HDR images using this plug-in is given in https://gimp-image-reg.sourceforge.io/examples-en.html.

Installation

The easiest way of installing the plug-in is to use the pre-built binaries for your system. The pre-built binaries come in form of ZIP archives and can be downloaded from https://sourceforge.net/projects/gimp-image-reg/files/version-2.0.1/.

The installation procedure is basically to unpack the ZIP archive for your system into your personal Gimp plug-in directory. It is also possible to unpack the ZIP archive into any folder on your system and add that folder to the list of folders which Gimp searches for any installed plug-ins.

For detailed instructions on installing the plug-in refer to https://gimp-image-reg.sourceforge.io/install-en.html.

Using the plug-in

After installing the plug-in it will appear as "Image Registration..." in the "Tools" menu of Gimp. For using the tool, load your images into Gimp (preferably as layers, see "Open as Layers..."), select the layer you would like to transform, and launch the tool. Refer to "Help" in tool's dialog for more information about the parameters.

Building from sources

The plug-in comes in two flavors:

• as a Python script using a native library written in C++, and
• as a native plug-in completely implemented in C/C++

For building the Python version of the plug-in you will need

• cmake version 3.13 or newer, and
• a modern C/C++ compiler with support for at least C++11

For building the native version of the plug-in, you will additionally need

• libgimp-2.0 development libraries

Refer to the platform specific scripts in scripts folder for examples of running cmake for creating the build environment and building the plug-in.

For detailed instructions on building the plug-in from sources refer to https://gimp-image-reg.sourceforge.io/install-en.html.