Optimal patch ranking for coordinate transform estimation of microscope images from sparse patch shift estimates

摘要

A method of determining a coordinate transform between a first image and a second image, said method comprising the steps of: determining a rate of change of pixel values for locations on the first image to identify candidate alignment patches in the first image; specifying subsets of patches from the set of candidate alignment patches based on an error metric, selecting a subset of candidate alignment patches from said plurality of subsets of candidate alignment patches based upon a predetermined criterion; estimating, for each patch in the selected subset, a shift between the patch and a corresponding patch in the second image, the location of the corresponding patch in the second image being determined from the location of the patch in the first image; and determining the coordinate transform between the first image and second image based on the estimated shifts.