Rigid and non-rigid image registration and its association with mutual information: a review

Abstract

Image registration is a fundamental problem that can be found in a diverse range of fields within the research community. It is used in areas such as engineering, science, medicine, robotics, computer vision and image processing, which often require the process of developing a spatial mapping between sets of data. Registration plays a crucial role in the medical imaging field where continual advances in imaging modalities, including MRI, CTI and PET, allow the generation of 3D images that explicitly outline detailed in vivo information of not only human anatomy, but also human function. A common task within the medical imaging eld is the fusing of the complimentary and synergistic information provided by the various imaging modalities. This process is known as multimodal registration. Another common task is the registration of images of the same patient taken at different times and/or in different positions. This process is referred to as mono-modal registration and can be used to track anypathological evolution. Other applications include inter-patient registration and patient-atlas