Nonlinear Registration of Brain Magnetic Resonance Images with Cross Constraints of Intensity and Structure

Many deep learning-based registration methods rely on a single-stream encoder-decoder network for computing deformation fields between 3D volumes.However,these methods often lack constraint information and overlook semantic consistency,limiting their performance.To address these issues,we present a novel approach for medical image registration called theDual-VoxelMorph,featuring a dual-channel cross-constraint network.This innovative network utilizes both intensity and segmentation images,which share identical semantic information and feature representations.Two encoder-decoder structures calculate deformation fields for intensity and segmentation images,as generated by the dual-channel cross-constraint network.This design facilitates bidirectional communication between grayscale and segmentation information,enabling the model to better learn the corresponding grayscale and segmentation details of the same anatomical structures.To ensure semantic and directional consistency,we introduce constraints and apply the cosine similarity function to enhance semantic consistency.Evaluation on four public datasets demonstrates superior performance compared to the baselinemethod,achieving Dice scores of 79.9%,64.5%,69.9%,and 63.5%for OASIS-1,OASIS-3,LPBA40,and ADNI,respectively.

Free form deformation and symmetry constraint‐based multimodal brain image registration using generative adversarial nets

Multi‐modal brain image registration has been widely applied to functional localisation,neurosurgery and computational anatomy.The existing registration methods based on the dense deformation fields involve too many parameters,which is not conducive to the exploration of correct spatial correspondence between the float and reference images.Meanwhile,the unidirectional registration may involve the deformation folding,which will result in the change of topology during registration.To address these issues,this work has presented an unsupervised image registration method using the free form deformation(FFD)and the symmetry constraint‐based generative adversarial networks(FSGAN).The FSGAN utilises the principle component analysis network‐based structural representations of the reference and float images as the inputs and uses the generator to learn the FFD model parameters,thereby producing two deformation fields.Meanwhile,the FSGAN uses two discriminators to decide whether the bilateral registration have been realised simultaneously.Besides,the symmetry constraint is utilised to construct the loss function,thereby avoiding the deformation folding.Experiments on BrainWeb,high grade gliomas,IXI and LPBA40 show that compared with state‐of‐the‐art methods,the FSGAN provides superior performance in terms of visual comparisons and such quantitative indexes as dice value,target registration error and computational efficiency.

Application of Opening and Closing Morphology in Deep Learning-Based Brain Image Registration

In order to improve the registration accuracy of brain magnetic resonance images(MRI),some deep learning registration methods use segmentation images for training model.How-ever,the segmentation values are constant for each label,which leads to the gradient variation con-centrating on the boundary.Thus,the dense deformation field(DDF)is gathered on the boundary and there even appears folding phenomenon.In order to fully leverage the label information,the morphological opening and closing information maps are introduced to enlarge the non-zero gradi-ent regions and improve the accuracy of DDF estimation.The opening information maps supervise the registration model to focus on smaller,narrow brain regions.The closing information maps supervise the registration model to pay more attention to the complex boundary region.Then,opening and closing morphology networks(OC_Net)are designed to automatically generate open-ing and closing information maps to realize the end-to-end training process.Finally,a new registra-tion architecture,VM_(seg+oc),is proposed by combining OC_Net and VoxelMorph.Experimental results show that the registration accuracy of VM_(seg+oc) is significantly improved on LPBA40 and OASIS1 datasets.Especially,VM_(seg+oc) can well improve registration accuracy in smaller brain regions and narrow regions.

A Review of Point Feature Based Medical Image Registration

Point features, as the basis of lines, surfaces, and bodies, are commonly used in medical image registration. To obtain an elegant spatial transformation of extracted feature points, many point set matching algorithms(PMs) have been developed to match two point sets by optimizing multifarious distance functions. There are ample reviews related to medical image registration and PMs which summarize their basic principles and main algorithms separately. However,to data, detailed summary of PMs used in medical image registration in different clinical environments has not been published. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of the existing key techniques of the PMs applied to medical image registration according to the basic principles and clinical applications. As the core technique of the PMs, geometric transformation models are elaborated in this paper, demonstrating the mechanism of point set registration. We also focus on the clinical applications of the PMs and propose a practical classification method according to their applications in different clinical surgeries. The aim of this paper is to provide a summary of pointfeaturebased methods used in medical image registration and to guide doctors or researchers interested in this field to choose appropriate techniques in their research.

SuperFusion: A Versatile Image Registration and Fusion Network with Semantic Awareness

Image fusion aims to integrate complementary information in source images to synthesize a fused image comprehensively characterizing the imaging scene. However, existing image fusion algorithms are only applicable to strictly aligned source images and cause severe artifacts in the fusion results when input images have slight shifts or deformations. In addition,the fusion results typically only have good visual effect, but neglect the semantic requirements of high-level vision tasks.This study incorporates image registration, image fusion, and semantic requirements of high-level vision tasks into a single framework and proposes a novel image registration and fusion method, named Super Fusion. Specifically, we design a registration network to estimate bidirectional deformation fields to rectify geometric distortions of input images under the supervision of both photometric and end-point constraints. The registration and fusion are combined in a symmetric scheme, in which while mutual promotion can be achieved by optimizing the naive fusion loss, it is further enhanced by the mono-modal consistent constraint on symmetric fusion outputs. In addition, the image fusion network is equipped with the global spatial attention mechanism to achieve adaptive feature integration. Moreover, the semantic constraint based on the pre-trained segmentation model and Lovasz-Softmax loss is deployed to guide the fusion network to focus more on the semantic requirements of high-level vision tasks. Extensive experiments on image registration, image fusion,and semantic segmentation tasks demonstrate the superiority of our Super Fusion compared to the state-of-the-art alternatives.The source code and pre-trained model are publicly available at https://github.com/Linfeng-Tang/Super Fusion.

Total Variation Constrained Non-Negative Matrix Factorization for Medical Image Registration

This paper presents a novel medical image registration algorithm named total variation constrained graphregularization for non-negative matrix factorization(TV-GNMF).The method utilizes non-negative matrix factorization by total variation constraint and graph regularization.The main contributions of our work are the following.First,total variation is incorporated into NMF to control the diffusion speed.The purpose is to denoise in smooth regions and preserve features or details of the data in edge regions by using a diffusion coefficient based on gradient information.Second,we add graph regularization into NMF to reveal intrinsic geometry and structure information of features to enhance the discrimination power.Third,the multiplicative update rules and proof of convergence of the TV-GNMF algorithm are given.Experiments conducted on datasets show that the proposed TV-GNMF method outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Multi-Scale PIIFD for Registration of Multi-Source Remote Sensing Images

This paper aims at providing multi-source remote sensing images registered in geometric space for image fusion.Focusing on the characteristics and differences of multi-source remote sensing images,a feature-based registration algorithm is implemented.The key technologies include image scale-space for implementing multi-scale properties,Harris corner detection for keypoints extraction,and partial intensity invariant feature descriptor(PIIFD)for keypoints description.Eventually,a multi-scale Harris-PIIFD image registration algorithm framework is proposed.The experimental results of fifteen sets of representative real data show that the algorithm has excellent,stable performance in multi-source remote sensing image registration,and can achieve accurate spatial alignment,which has strong practical application value and certain generalization ability.

Two fully automated data-driven 3D whole-breast segmentation strategies in MRI for MR-based breast density using image registration and U-Net with a focus on reproducibility

Presence of higher breast density(BD)and persistence over time are risk factors for breast cancer.A quantitatively accurate and highly reproducible BD measure that relies on precise and reproducible whole-breast segmentation is desirable.In this study,we aimed to develop a highly reproducible and accurate whole-breast segmentation algorithm for the generation of reproducible BD measures.Three datasets of volunteers from two clinical trials were included.Breast MR images were acquired on 3T Siemens Biograph mMR,Prisma,and Skyra using 3D Cartesian six-echo GRE sequences with a fat-water separation technique.Two whole-breast segmentation strategies,utiliz-ing image registration and 3D U-Net,were developed.Manual segmentation was performed.A task-based analysis was performed:a previously developed MR-based BD measure,MagDensity,was calculated and assessed using automated and manual segmentation.The mean squared error(MSE)and intraclass correlation coefficient(ICC)between MagDensity were evaluated using the manual segmentation as a reference.The test-retest reproducibility of MagDensity derived from different breast segmentation methods was assessed using the difference between the test and retest measures(Δ_(2-1)),MSE,and ICC.The results showed that MagDensity derived by the registration and deep learning segmentation methods exhibited high concordance with manual segmentation,with ICCs of 0.986(95%CI:0.974-0.993)and 0.983(95%CI:0.961-0.992),respectively.For test-retest analysis,MagDensity derived using the regis-tration algorithm achieved the smallest MSE of 0.370 and highest ICC of 0.993(95%CI:0.982-0.997)when compared to other segmentation methods.In conclusion,the proposed registration and deep learning whole-breast segmentation methods are accurate and reliable for estimating BD.Both methods outperformed a previously developed algorithm and manual segmentation in the test-retest assessment,with the registration exhibiting superior performance for highly reproducible BD measurements.

Sonar Image Registration and Mosaic Based on Line Detection and Triangle Matching

Image registration is an important research topic in the field of computer vision,in which the registration and mosaic of side-scan sonar images is the keypoints of underwater navigation.However,the image registration method of keypoints is not suitable for sonar images which do not have obvious feature points.Therefore,a method of sonar-image registration and mosaic based on line segment extraction and triangle matching is proposed in this paper.Firstly,in order to extract features from sonar image,the LSD method is introduced to detect line feature from images,and line segments are filtered by the principle of attention;after that,triangles are formed from line segments,an image transformation matrix can be calculated through the heuristic greedy algorithm from these triangles;finally,images are merged based on the transformation information.On the basis of practical tests,it is found that,the feature extraction method used in this paper can better describe the outline of underwater terrain,and there is no obvious stitching gap between the result of sonar images stitched.Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective than the keypoints method of the registration and mosaic of sonar images.

MUTUAL INFORMATION BASED 3D NON-RIGID REGISTRATION OF CT/MR ABDOMEN IMAGES

A mutual information based 3D non-rigid registration approach was proposed for the registration of deformable CT/MR body abdomen images. The Parzen Windows Density Estimation (PWDE) method is adopted to calculate the mutual information between the two modals of CT and MRI abdomen images. By maximizing MI between the CT and MR volume images, the overlapping part of them reaches the biggest, which means that the two body images of CT and MR matches best to each other. Visible Human Project (VHP) Male abdomen CT and MRI Data are used as experimental data sets. The experimental results indicate that this approach of non-rigid 3D registration of CT/MR body abdominal images can be achieved effectively and automatically, without any prior processing procedures such as segmentation and feature extraction, but has a main drawback of very long computation time.

ASRNet: Adversarial Segmentation and Registration Networks for Multispectral Fundus Images

Multispectral imaging (MSI) technique is often used to capture imagesof the fundus by illuminating it with different wavelengths of light. However,these images are taken at different points in time such that eyeball movementscan cause misalignment between consecutive images. The multispectral imagesequence reveals important information in the form of retinal and choroidal bloodvessel maps, which can help ophthalmologists to analyze the morphology of theseblood vessels in detail. This in turn can lead to a high diagnostic accuracy of several diseases. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-supervised end-to-end deeplearning framework called “Adversarial Segmentation and Registration Nets”(ASRNet) for the simultaneous estimation of the blood vessel segmentation andthe registration of multispectral images via an adversarial learning process. ASRNet consists of two subnetworks: (i) A segmentation module S that fulfills theblood vessel segmentation task, and (ii) A registration module R that estimatesthe spatial correspondence of an image pair. Based on the segmention-drivenregistration network, we train the segmentation network using a semi-supervisedadversarial learning strategy. Our experimental results show that the proposedASRNet can achieve state-of-the-art accuracy in segmentation and registrationtasks performed with real MSI datasets.

An image registration method based on multi-resolution morphology contour detection

Combined with the printing application,an image registration method based on the multi-resolution morphology contour detection was proposed.First,a direction based multi-resolution gray morphology in the scheme was proposed to realize the contour extraction.Then,based on the contour features,the subspace image registration was proposed to deal with issues of the computing complexity appeared in the traditional image registration methods.The proposed image registration was efficiently applied in the defect inspection of printing images.

Research on Detection Technology of Micro-Components on Circuit Board Based on Digital Image Processing

Aiming at the stability of the circuit board image in the acquisition process,this paper realizes the accurate registration of the image to be registered and the standard image based on the SIFT feature operator and RANSAC algorithm.The device detection model and data set are established based on Faster RCNN.Finally,the number of training was continuously optimized,and when the loss function of Faster RCNN converged,the identification result of the device was obtained.

Fast Remote-Sensing Image Registration Using Priori Information and Robust Feature Extraction

In this paper, we propose a fast registration scheme for remote-sensing images for use as a fundamental technique in large-scale online remote-sensing data processing tasks. First, we introduce priori-information images,and use machine learning techniques to identify robust remote-sensing image features from state-of-the-art ScaleInvariant Feature Transform(SIFT) features. Next, we apply a hierarchical coarse-to-fine feature matching and image registration scheme on the basis of additional priori information, including a robust feature location map and platform imaging parameters. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed scheme increases position repetitiveness by 34%, and can speed up the overall image registration procedure by a factor of 7:47 while maintaining the accuracy of the image registration performance.

Remote Sensing Image Registration Based on Improved KAZE and BRIEF Descriptor

Remote sensing image registration is still a challenging task owing to the significant influence of nonlinear differences between remote sensing images.To solve this problem,this paper proposes a novel approach with regard to feature-based remote sensing image registration.There are two key contributions:1)we bring forward an improved strategy of composite nonlinear diffusion filtering according to the scale factors in multi-scale space and 2)we design a gradually decreasing resolution of multi-scale pyramid space.And a binary code string is served as feature descriptors to improve matching efficiency.Extensive experiments of different categories of remote image datasets on feature extraction and feature registration are performed.The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed scheme compared with other classical algorithms in terms of correct matching ratio,accuracy and computation efficiency.

Computational Intelligence in Remote Sensing Image Registration:A survey

In recent years,computational intelligence has been widely used in many fields and achieved remarkable performance.Evolutionary computing and deep learning are important branches of computational intelligence.Many methods based on evolutionary computation and deep learning have achieved good performance in remote sensing image registration.This paper introduces the application of computational intelligence in remote sensing image registration from the two directions of evolutionary computing and deep learning.In the part of remote sensing image registration based on evolutionary calculation,the principles of evolutionary algorithms and swarm intelligence algorithms are elaborated and their application in remote sensing image registration is discussed.The application of deep learning in remote sensing image registration is also discussed.At the same time,the development status and future of remote sensing image registration are summarized and their prospects are examined.

SeRN:A Two-Stage Framework of Registration for Semi-Supervised Learning for Medical Images

Significant breakthroughs in medical image registration have been achieved using deep neural networks(DNNs).However,DNN-based end-to-end registration methods often require large quantities of data or adequate annotations for training.To leverage the intensity information of abundant unlabeled images,unsupervised registration methods commonly employ intensity-based similarity measures to optimize the network parameters.However,finding a sufficiently robust measure can be challenging for specific registration applications.Weakly supervised registration methods use anatomical labels to estimate the deformation between images.High-level structural information in label images is more reliable and practical for estimating the voxel correspondence of anatomic regions of interest between images,whereas label images are extremely difficult to collect.In this paper,we propose a two-stage semi-supervised learning framework for medical image registration,which consists of unsupervised and weakly supervised registration networks.The proposed semi-supervised learning framework is trained with intensity information from available images,label information from a relatively small number of labeled images and pseudo-label information from unlabeled images.Experimental results on two datasets(cardiac and abdominal images)demonstrate the efficacy and efficiency of this method in intra-and inter-modality medical image registrations,as well as its superior performance when a vast amount of unlabeled data and a small set of annotations are available.Our code is publicly available at at https://github.com/jdq818/SeRN.

A two-stage restoration of distorted underwater images using compressive sensing and image registration

Imaging through a time-varying water surface exhibits severe non-rigid geometric distortions and motion blur.Theoretically,although the water surface possesses smoothness and temporal periodicity,random fluctuations are inevitable in an actual video sequence.Meanwhile,considering the distribution of information,the image structure contributes more to the restoration.In this paper,a new two-stage restoration method for distorted underwater video sequences is presented.During the first stage,salient feature points,which are selected through multiple methods,are tracked across the frames,and the motion fields at all pixels are estimated using a compressive sensing solver to remove the periodic distortions.During the second stage,the combination of a guided filter algorithm and an image registration method is applied to remove the structural-information-oriented residual distortions.Finally,the experiment results show that the method outperforms other state-of-the-art approaches in terms of the recovery effect and time.

Mutual Information Optimization Based Dynamic Log-Polar Image Registration

Log-polar transformation(LPT)is widely used in image registration due to its scale and rotation invariant properties.Through LPT,rotation and scale transformation can be made into translation displacement in log-polar coordinates,and phase correlation technique can be used to get the displacement.In LPT based image registration,constant samples in digitalization processing produce less precise and effective results.Thus,dynamic log-polar transformation(DLPT)is used in this paper.DLPT is a method that generates several sample sets in axes to produce several results and only the effective results are used to get the final results by using statistical approach.Therefore,DLPT can get more precise and effective transformation results than the conventional LPT.Mutual information(MI)is a similarity measure to align two images and has been used in image registration for a long time.An optimal transform for image registration can be obtained by maximizing MI between the two images.Image registration based on MI is robust in noisy,occlusion and illumination changing circumstance.In this paper,we study image registration using MI and DLPT.Experiments with digitalizing images and with real image datasets are performed,and the experimental results show that the combination of MI with DLPT is an effective and precise method for image registration.

Image Registration Technique for Assessing the Accuracy of Intraoperative Osteotomy for Pelvic Tumors by 3D-Printed Patient-Specific Templates

The study aimed to explore the feasibility of an image registration technique for assessing the accuracy of intraoperative osteotomy of pelvic tumors by 3-dimensional(3D)-printed patient-specific templates.Patients with malignant pelvic tumors who were admitted to our hospital between March 2014 and December 2020 were retrospectively enrolled.Patients underwent hemi-pelvic resection and reconstruction by 3D-printed individualized prostheses.The registration between the designed model and the postoperative segmented model of the prosthesis was used to obtain the intraoperative osteotomy plane and reduce metal artifacts in postoperative computed tomography(CT)images.The distance and angle between the planned and actual osteotomy planes were then used to assess the accuracy of the intraoperative osteotomy.Eight patients with 13 osteotomy planes were enrolled,including four males and four females.The median age at the time of imaging examination was 44 years(range,33–54 years).All intraoperative osteotomy planes were assessed successfully.The mean distance between the planned and true intraoperative osteotomy planes was−0.69 cm(−7.5–7.35 cm),and the mean angle was 6.57°±3.36°(1.05°–11.88°).This new assessment method of registering the designed model and the postoperative CT segmented model of the prosthesis may be used to assess the accuracy of intraoperative osteotomy for pelvic tumors,using 3D printed patient-specific templates.