Image fusion based on Complex Wavelets and region segmentation

This paper discusses about a fusion algorithm for infrared and visible light images based on region segmentation and the dual-tree complex wavelet transform. Before image segmentation, morphological top-hat filtering is firstly performed on the IR image and visual images respectively and the details of the luminous area are eliminated. Morphological bottom-hat filtering is then performed on the two kinds of images respectively and the details of the dark area are eliminated. Make the top-hat filtered image subtract the bottom-hat filtered image and obtain the enhanced images. Then the threshold method is used to segment the enhanced images. After image segmentation, the Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (DTCWT) coefficients from different regions are merged separately. Finally the fused image is obtained by performing inverse DTCWT. The evaluation results show the validity of the presented algorithm.