Patent ID: 7471851

Claim:
A method for enhancing the resolution of a first dataset describing an entity in a first modality and having a first resolution, said enhancement being based on a second dataset describing said entity in a second modality having a second resolution higher than said first resolution, said method comprising the steps of: (1) spatially registering said first and second datasets to each other; (2) generating a joint probability describing the probability of an intensity value for each of a set of missing datapoints in the first dataset using an intensity value of a corresponding datapoint in the second dataset to provide an estimate of the intensities of the missing datapoints in the first dataset; and (3) iteratively maximizing a function over the set of probabilities of intensity values of said missing datapoints to generate a third dataset of said first modality having a higher resolution than said first dataset, said function giving preference to a dataset consistent with (i) said joint probability and (ii) a smoothness assumption.