Poisson image fusion based on Markov random field fusion model

In this paper, we present a gradient domain image fusion framework based on the Markov Random Field (MRF) fusion model. In this framework, the salient structures of the input images are fused in the gradient domain, then the final fused image is reconstructed by solving a Poisson equation which forces the gradients of the fused image to be close to the fused gradients. To fuse the structures in the gradient domain, an effective MRF-based fusion model is designed based on both the per-pixel fusion rule defined by the local saliency and also the smoothness constraints over the fusion weights, which is optimized by graph cut algorithm. This MRF-based fusion model enables the accurate estimation of region-based fusion weights for the salient objects or structures. We apply this method to the applications of multi-sensor image fusion, including infrared and visible image fusion, multi-focus image fusion and medical image fusion. Extensive experiments and comparisons show that the proposed fusion model is able to better fuse the multi-sensor images and produces high-quality fusion results compared with the other state-of-the-art methods. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.