CT-MR image registration in 3D K-space based on Fourier moment matching

Abstract

CT-MRI registration is a common processing procedure for clinical diagnosis and therapy. We propose a novel K-space affine image registration algorithm via Fourier moment matching. The proposed algorithm is based on estimating the affine matrix from the moment relationship between the corresponding Fourier spectrums. This estimation strategy is very robust because the energy of the Fourier spectrum is mostly concentrated in the low-frequency band, thus the moments of the Fourier spectrum are robust against noises and outliers. Our experiments on the real CT and MRI datasets show that the proposed Fourier-based registration algorithm provides higher registration accuracy than the existing mutual information registration technique. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.