Align

Align roughly aligns one image with another, with your help. Connect the image to keep fixed to anchor_link, and the image to move to stretched_link. The stretched image is magnified, rotated and moved to match the anchor image; the anchor image is not changed. Each image must be a single-band monochrome image or a three-band color image.

When you run the job, Align opens a display window that works like Show: turn the scroll wheel to zoom around the cursor, and drag with the left mouse button to move both images together.

1. Align one point. Hold down Shift and drag: the anchor image stays still and the stretched image moves over it. Line up one point in both images.
2. Lock it. Put the cursor over that point, right-click, and choose Set Lock. A small crosshair marks the lock. You can remove the lock from the same menu.
3. Align a second point. Hold down Shift again, and drag a second point of the stretched image onto the matching point of the anchor image. The stretched image is magnified and rotated around the locked point to match. You can repeat this as often as you like.
4. Finish. Select Done and confirm. The modified stretched image is displayed.

The Command button shows the transform as text at any time.

If an output module, such as Show or WriteImage, is connected to Align, the stretched image is passed to it after you finish, and the display window closes. Otherwise, the window stays open until you close it. The output image is the same size as the anchor image. If the two images are different sizes, the smaller one is padded with zeros while you align them; the padding is removed from the output.

The transform is also copied to the system clipboard. If you paste it into the “command” box of the Align dialog and run the job again, no display window appears: the stretched image is transformed and output directly.

A “window” only adjusts how the images are displayed while you align them. It does not change the output.