Optimal patch ranking for coordinate transform estimation of microscope images from sparse patch shift estimates

摘要

A method of determining a coordinate transform between a first image and a second image, said method comprising the steps of: determining a rate of change of pixel values for locations on the first image to identify candidate alignment patches in the first image; specifying subsets of patches from the set of candidate alignment patches based on an error metric, selecting a subset of candidate alignment patches from said plurality of subsets of candidate alignment patches based upon a predetermined criterion; estimating, for each patch in the selected subset, a shift between the patch and a corresponding patch in the second image, the location of the corresponding patch in the second image being determined from the location of the patch in the first image; and determining the coordinate transform between the first image and second image based on the estimated shifts.

主权项

1. A method of determining a global coordinate transform between a first image and a second image from a selected subset of candidate alignment patches, said method comprising the steps of:
determining a rate of change of pixel values for each of a plurality of locations on the first image; identifying a set of candidate alignment patches in the first image based upon the determined rate of change; specifying a plurality of subsets of candidate alignment patches from the set of candidate alignment patches, each specified subset containing at least three patches, based on a global error metric corresponding to each subset, said global error metric depending upon errors of the global transform over an overlap area of the first image and the second image, and upon said rate of change of pixel values for the patches in a corresponding subset; selecting a subset of candidate alignment patches from said plurality of subsets of candidate alignment patches based upon a predetermined criterion which is dependent upon the selected subset; estimating, for each patch in the selected subset, a shift between the patch and a corresponding patch in the second image, the location of the corresponding patch in the second image being determined from the location of the patch in the first image; and determining the global coordinate transform between the first image and second image based on the estimated shifts.