A fast 3-D medical image registration algorithm based on equivalent meridian plane

For the rigid registration of multi-modality medical images, mutual information (MI) technique is unsuitable to clinical diagnose because of high computational cost and low robustness. In this paper, a new concept of equivalent meridian plane (EMP) is proposed, and the EMP and other two normal feature planes are determined using principal component analysis (PCA); the rough registrations of those 2D planes are to be realized at six freedom degree; finally, the refine registrations can be completed using MI in a small neighboring region. This method is called as EMP based MI registration technique. The accuracy and robustness of EMP-MI approach can be verified by applying it to the simulated and real brain image data (CT, MR, PET, and SPECT). The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm reduces computational time distinctly and is a global optimal strategy. © 2007 IEEE