Coincident bit counting-a new criterion for image registration.

A similarity measure based on the number of coincident bits in multichannel images is presented. The similarity criterion incorporated in the image registration algorithm uses a coincident bit counting (CBC) method to obtain the number of matching bits between the frames of interest. The CBC method not only performs favorably compared with traditional techniques, but also renders simpler implementation in conventional computing machines. An image registration algorithm that incorporates the CBC criterion is proposed to determine the translation motion among sequences of images. The errors caused by noise, misregistration, and a combination of these two are analyzed. Some experimental studies using low-contrast coronary images from a digital angiographic sequence are discussed. The results compare favorably with those obtained by using other nonparametric methods.