Vision-Based Object Registration for Real-Time Image Overlay

This paper presents a computer vision-based technique for object registration, real-time tracking, and image overlay. The capability can be used to superimpose registered medical images such as those from CT or MRI on to a video image of a patient's body. Real-time object registration enables an image to be overlaid consistently on to objects even while the objects and cameras viewing it are moving. Object registration is composed of feature tracking, feature correspondence, and pose calculation of objects. This technique is based on geometric models of objects, but it can be extended so that some image overlay is possible without a prior model of the object.