Automatic Extraction of Corresponding-Points for Image Registration

摘要

Recently, multi-sensor image fusion systems and related applications have been widely investigated. In an image fusion system, robust and accurate multi-modal image registration is essential. In the conventional method, the image registration process starts with manually-pointed corresponding pairs in both sensored images. Using these corresponding pairs, a transform matrix is initialized and refined through an optimization process. In this paper, we propose a new automatic extraction method for such corresponding pairs. The Harris corner detector is employed to extract feature points in both EO/IR images individually. Patches around the detected feature points are matched with a probabilistic criterion, mutual information (MI), which is a preferred measure for image registration due to its robust and accurate performance. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a low time complexity and extracts corresponding pairs well.