Image registration: rigidity considerations

When aligning one image to another by standard image registration methods, rigid structures such as bones can be warped artificially. Former doctoral student Dan Ruan developed an image method for X-ray CT image registration that allows soft tissue to deform nonrigidly but encourages bones to move rigidly. This work was presented in her dissertation and at the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference in 2006. Here is a figure from page 34 of her thesis that shows how the rib bones can be unnaturally bent by standard image registration methods (see yellow arrows in the left images) but are better registered by the method she developed.

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