Patent Document ID: 8218909
Application ID: 12198190
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for deformable registration of 2 digital images, comprising the steps of: providing a pair of edge images, said pair including a fixed edge image and a moving edge image, each said edge image comprising a set of edge points extracted from a corresponding 2-dimensional digital image; initializing moving points q i from fixed points p i , wherein said fixed points are selected from said fixed edge image; initializing a set of N 2-dimensional curbs ζ i (t), iε[1,N], on a domain of said edge images parameterized by tε[0,T] associated with paths from said fixed points p i to moving points q i wherein ζ i ⁡ ( t ) = p i + t T ⁢ ( q i - p i ) ; updating said curbs for parameters tε[2,T−1] using a gradient descent of an energy associated with paths from said landmark points p i to landmark points q i ; calculating from said curbs for parameters tε[2,T−1] a set of coefficients a, b, α that define a diffeomorphic function g defined on said image domain wherein g ⁡ ( p i ) ⁢ = ~ ⁢ q i , ∀ i ∈ [ 1 , N ] , and ⁢ ⁢ g ⁡ ( x ) = ax + b + ∑ i = 1 N ⁢ α i ⁢ f p i ⁡ ( x ) , wherein a is a 2×2 matrix, b is a 2D vector, α is a 2×N matrix, and ƒ p (x) are a set of basis functions; calculating g from said coefficients; updating said curbs for t=T from said diffeomorphic function g and a gradient descent of said constraint energy calculated for points transformed by g; and repeating said steps of updating said curbs for parameters tε[2,T−1], calculating said coefficients a, b, α, calculating g, and updating said curbs for t=T until g converges, wherein g is a deformation field that maps said fixed edge points to said moving edge points, and said curbs for t=T represent the image of the initial points as transformed by g.