Deformable image registration

The paper describes a novel deformable data registration algorithm. The proposed method can be seen as a tradeoff between the landmark and intensity driven data registration techniques. The algorithm is fast, robust and offers high registration accuracy. The algorithm enables to include complex constraints on the allowable data deformations. It is shown that some of these constraints permit to treat part of the data as rigid objects or restrict its deformation to a predefined shape. The main focus of the paper is put on the description of the elastic deformation model used in the method. The performance of this new technique is illustrated using simulated as well as real computed tomography (CT) images.