A regional image fusion based on similarity characteristics

In this paper, we propose an image-driven regional fusion method based on a specific region partition strategy according to the redundant and complementary correlation of the input images. Different from the traditional regional fusion approaches dividing one or more input images, our final region map is generated from the similarity comparisons between source images. Inspired by the success of structural similarity index (SSIM), the similarity characteristics of source images are represented by luminance, contrast, and structure comparisons. To generate redundant and complementary regions, we over segment the SSIM map using watershed, and merge the small homogeneous regions with close correlation based on the similarity components. In accordance with the concentrated similarity of different regions, the fusion principles for special regions are constructed to combine the redundant or complementary property. In our method, the redundant and complementary regions of input images are distinguished effectively, which can aid in the sequent fusion process. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieve superior results in the different fusion applications. Compared with the existing work, the proposed approach outperforms in both visual presentation and objective evaluation.

▶ The first study to propose special regional segmentation for image fusion. ▶ The regions showing correlation of source images. ▶ The specific fusion rules are assigned to different regions. ▶ There is no parameter in this method, and it can be used in different image fusion applications.