A stitching algorithm for automatic registration of digital radiographs

Abstract

In digital radiography oversized radiographs have to be assembled from multiple spatially overlapping exposures. We present an algorithm for fast automatic registration of these radiographs. An external feature is brought into the radiographs to facilitate the reconstruction. Pivotal for this algorithm is an actual interpretation of this feature instead of a simple detection. It possesses strong robustness against noise, feature masking and feature displacement. Evaluation has been performed on 2000 pairs of clinical radiographs. The proposed algorithm proved to be a powerful enhancement of established automatic registration algorithms. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.