Wavelet-based focus measure and 3-D surface reconstruction method for microscopy images

Microscopy imaging can not achieve both high resolution and wide image space simultaneously. Autofocusing and 3-D surface reconstruction techniques are of fundamental importance to automated micromanipulation in providing high lever task understanding, task planning and real time control. In this paper, a new wavelet-based focus measure is developed, which provides significantly better depth resolution accuracy, and robustness than previous ones. A complex valued wavelet-based microscopic image fusion method and 3-D surface reconstruction scheme were proposed. Purpose of image fusion is to combine those multi-focus images into one single clear composite image with an extended depth-of-field. Combined 2-D position data of "in focus" pixels with a height map obtained from the proposed image fusion method, a 3-D surface reconstruction algorithm of microparts is developed. Experimental results validate the performances of the proposed image fusion and 3-D surface reconstruction methods.