Single- and multimodal subvoxel registration of dissimilar medical images using robust similarity measures
Christophoros Nikou, Fabrice Heitz, Jean‐Paul Armspach, Izzie Jacques Namer · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1998
Although a large variety of image registration methods have been described in the literature, only a few approaches have attempted to address the rigid registration of medical images showing gross dissimilarities (due for instance to lesion evolution). In the present paper, we develop driven registration algorithms, relying on robust pixel similarity metrics, that enable an accurate (subvoxel) rigid registration of dissimilar single or multimodal 2D/3D images. In the proposed approach, gross dissimilarities are handled by considering similarity measures related to robust M-estimators. A `soft redescending' estimator (the Geman- McClure p-function) has been adopted to reject gross image dissimilarities during the registration. The registration parameters are estimated using a top down stochastic multigrid relaxation algorithm. Thanks to the stochastic multigrid strategy, the registration is not affected by local minima in the objective function and a manual initialization near the optimal solution is not necessary. The proposed robust similarity metrics compare favorably to the most popular standard similarity metrics, on patient image pairs showing gross dissimilarities. Two case studies are considered: the registration of MR/MR and MR/SPECT image volumes of patients suffering from multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.