Image registration based on maximization of gradient code mutual information

Herein one proposes a mutual information-based registration method using pixel gradient information rather than pixel intensity information. Special care is paid to finding the global maximum of the registration function. In particular, one uses simulated annealing method speeded up by including a statistical analysis to reduce the next search space across the cooling schedule. An additional speed up is obtained by combining this numerical strategy with hill-climbing method. Experimental results obtained on a limited database of biological images illustrate that the proposed method for image registration is relatively fast, and performs well as the overlap between the floating and reference images is decreased and/or the image resolution is coarsened.