Consistent joint photometric and geometric image registration

In this paper, we derive a novel robust image alignment technique that performs joint geometric and photometric registration in the total least square sense. The main idea is to use the total least square metrics instead of the ordinary least square metrics, which is commonly used in the literature. While the OLS model indicates that the target image may contain noise and the reference image should be noise-free, this puts a severe limitation on practical registration problems. By introducing the TLS model, which allows perturbations in both images, we can obtain mutually consistent parameters. Experimental results show that our method is indeed much more consistent and accurate in presence of noise compared to existing registration algorithms

Direct inverse deformation field approach to pelvic-area symmetric image registration

This paper presents a novel technique for a consistent symmetric deformable image registration based on an accurate method for a direct inversion of a large motion model deformation field. The proposed image registration algorithm maintains one-to-one mapping between registered images by symmetrically warping them to another image. This makes the final estimation of forward and backward deformation fields anatomically plausible and applicable to adaptive prostate radiotherapy. The quantitative validation of the method is performed on magnetic resonance data obtained for pelvis area. The experiments demonstrate the improved robustness in terms of inverse consistency error and estimation accuracy of prostate position in comparison to the previously proposed methods

Fast Predictive Multimodal Image Registration

We introduce a deep encoder-decoder architecture for image deformation prediction from multimodal images. Specifically, we design an image-patch-based deep network that jointly (i) learns an image similarity measure and (ii) the relationship between image patches and deformation parameters. While our method can be applied to general image registration formulations, we focus on the Large Deformation Diffeomorphic Metric Mapping (LDDMM) registration model. By predicting the initial momentum of the shooting formulation of LDDMM, we preserve its mathematical properties and drastically reduce the computation time, compared to optimization-based approaches. Furthermore, we create a Bayesian probabilistic version of the network that allows evaluation of registration uncertainty via sampling of the network at test time. We evaluate our method on a 3D brain MRI dataset using both T1- and T2-weighted images. Our experiments show that our method generates accurate predictions and that learning the similarity measure leads to more consistent registrations than relying on generic multimodal image similarity measures, such as mutual information. Our approach is an order of magnitude faster than optimization-based LDDMM.Comment: Accepted as a conference paper for ISBI 201

Inverse Consistency by Construction for Multistep Deep Registration

Inverse consistency is a desirable property for image registration. We propose a simple technique to make a neural registration network inverse consistent by construction, as a consequence of its structure, as long as it parameterizes its output transform by a Lie group. We extend this technique to multi-step neural registration by composing many such networks in a way that preserves inverse consistency. This multi-step approach also allows for inverse-consistent coarse to fine registration. We evaluate our technique on synthetic 2-D data and four 3-D medical image registration tasks and obtain excellent registration accuracy while assuring inverse consistency

Unsupervised Deformable Image Registration Using Cycle-Consistent CNN

Medical image registration is one of the key processing steps for biomedical image analysis such as cancer diagnosis. Recently, deep learning based supervised and unsupervised image registration methods have been extensively studied due to its excellent performance in spite of ultra-fast computational time compared to the classical approaches. In this paper, we present a novel unsupervised medical image registration method that trains deep neural network for deformable registration of 3D volumes using a cycle-consistency. Thanks to the cycle consistency, the proposed deep neural networks can take diverse pair of image data with severe deformation for accurate registration. Experimental results using multiphase liver CT images demonstrate that our method provides very precise 3D image registration within a few seconds, resulting in more accurate cancer size estimation.Comment: accepted for MICCAI 201

Measurement Errors and their Propagation in the Registration of Remote Sensing Images (?)

Reference control points (RCPs) used in establishing the regression model in the registration or geometric correction of remote sensing images are generally assumed to be ?perfect?. That is, the RCPs, as explanatory variables in the regression equation, are accurate and the coordinates of their locations have no errors. Thus ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator has been applied extensively to the registration or geometric correction of remotely sensed data. However, this assumption is often invalid in practice because RCPs always contain errors. Moreover, the errors are actually one of the main sources which lower the accuracy of geometric correction of an uncorrected image. Under this situation, the OLS estimator is biased. It cannot handle explanatory variables with errors and cannot propagate appropriately errors from the RCPs to the corrected image. Therefore, it is essential to develop new feasible methods to overcome such a problem. In this paper, we introduce the consistent adjusted least squares (CALS) estimator and propose a relaxed consistent adjusted least squares (RCALS) method, with the latter being more general and flexible, for geometric correction or registration. These estimators have good capability in correcting errors contained in the RCPs, and in propagating appropriately errors of the RCPs to the corrected image with and without prior information. The objective of the CALS and our proposed RCALS estimators is to improve the accuracy of measurement value by weakening the measurement errors. The validity of the CALS and RCALS estimators are first demonstrated by applying them to perform geometric corrections of controlled simulated images. The conceptual arguments are further substantiated by a real-life example. Compared to the OLS estimator, the CALS and RCALS estimators give a superior overall performances in estimating the regression coefficients and variance of measurement errors. Keywords: error propagation, geometric correction, ordinary least squares, registration, relaxed consistent adjusted least squares, remote sensing images.

Symmetric inverse consistent nonlinear registration driven by mutual information.

A nonlinear viscoelastic image registration algorithm based on the demons paradigm and incorporating inverse consistent constraint (ICC) is implemented. An inverse consistent and symmetric cost function using mutual information (MI) as a similarity measure is employed. The cost function also includes regularization of transformation and inverse consistent error (ICE). The uncertainties in balancing various terms in the cost function are avoided by alternatively minimizing the similarity measure, the regularization of the transformation, and the ICE terms. The diffeomorphism of registration for preventing folding and/or tearing in the deformation is achieved by the composition scheme. The quality of image registration is first demonstrated by constructing brain atlas from 20 adult brains (age range 30-60). It is shown that with this registration technique: (1) the Jacobian determinant is positive for all voxels and (2) the average ICE is around 0.004 voxels with a maximum value below 0.1 voxels. Further, the deformation-based segmentation on Internet Brain Segmentation Repository, a publicly available dataset, has yielded high Dice similarity index (DSI) of 94.7% for the cerebellum and 74.7% for the hippocampus, attesting to the quality of our registration method