A multi-focus image fusion algorithm based on an improved dual-channel PCNN in NSCT domain

Abstract This paper presents a multi-focus image fusion algorithm based on dual-channel PCNN in NSCT domain. The fusion algorithm based on multi-scale transform is likely to produce the pseudo-Gibbs effects and it is not effective to fuse the dim or partial bright images. To solve these problems, this algorithm will get a number of different frequency sub-image of the two images by using the NSCT transform, the selection principles of different subband coefficients obtained by the NSCT decomposition are discussed in detail, and the images are fused based on the improved dual-channel PCNN in order to determine the band-pass sub-band coefficient, at last fused image is obtained by using the inverse NSCT transform. Fusion rules based on dual-channel PCNN are used to solve the complexity of the PCNN parameter settings and long computing time problems. The experimental results show that the algorithm has overcome the defects of the traditional multi-focus image fusion algorithm and improved the fusion effect.