Robust image registration based on a Partition of Unity Finite Element Method

In this paper, we present a robust, hierarchical partition of unity finite element method (PUFEM) to compute the transformation between two images, which is represented by a non-rigid, locally polynomial displacement field. The partition of unity property offers an efficient optimization scheme by breaking down the global minimization of the mismatch energy into independent, local minimizations. Moreover, the regularization introduced by our approach enables us to control the range of the smoothness. Our method was applied to cardiac ultrasound image sequences to propagate the segmentation of anatomical structures of interest.