Deformable Medical Image Registration: A Survey

Deformable image registration is a fundamental task in medical image processing. Among its most important applications, one may cite: 1) multi-modality fusion, where information acquired by different imaging devices or protocols is fused to facilitate diagnosis and treatment planning; 2) longitudinal studies, where temporal structural or anatomical changes are investigated; and 3) population modeling and statistical atlases used to study normal anatomical variability. In this paper, we attempt to give an overview of deformable registration methods, putting emphasis on the most recent advances in the domain. Additional emphasis has been given to techniques applied to medical images. In order to study image…