Image fusion through feature extraction by using sequentially combined toggle and top-hat based contrast operator

Combing the useful information of multisensor or multifocus images is important for producing effective optical images. To extract and combine the image features of the original images for image fusion well, an algorithm through feature extraction by using the sequentially combined toggle and top-hat based contrast operator is proposed in this paper. Sequentially combining toggle contrast operator and top-hat based contrast operator could be used to identify well the effective bright and dark image features. Furthermore, through multiscale extension, the effective bright and dark image features at multiscales of an image are extracted. After the final bright and dark fusion features are constructed by using the pixel-wise maximum operation on the multiscale image features from different images, the final fusion result is obtained by importing the final bright and dark fusion features into the base image. Experimental results on different types of images show that the proposed algorithm performs well for image fusion, which may be widely used in different applications, such as security surveillance, object recognition, and so on. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America