Incorporating global information in feature-based multimodal image registration

Abstract. A multimodal image registration framework based on searching the best matched keypoints and the incorporation of global information is proposed. It comprises two key elements: keypoint detection and an iterative process. Keypoints are detected from both the reference and test images. For each test keypoint, a number of reference keypoints are chosen as mapping candidates. A triplet of keypoint mappings determine an affine transformation that is evaluated using a similarity metric between the reference image and the transformed test image by the determined transformation. An iterative process is conducted on triplets of keypoint mappings, keeping track of the best matched reference keypoint. Random sample consensus and mutual information are applied to eliminate outlier keypoint mappings. The similarity metric is defined to be the number of overlapped edge pixels over the entire images, allowing for global information to be incorporated in the evaluation of triplets of mappings. The performance of the framework is investigated with keypoints extracted by scale invariant feature transform and partial intensity invariant feature descriptor. Experimental results show that the proposed framework can provide more accurate registration than existing methods.