Identification and evaluation of landmarks for deformable alignment of multi-modality medical images

In this study, automatic identification of landmarks was carried out on real double-echo PD/T2 Magnetic Resonance images for use in multi-modality deformable image registration algorithms. To this end, the corner points of the PD-weighted Magnetic Resonance image selected as the reference image were identified at varying fields of view and used as landmark candidates after eliminating the repeated points and those at close proximity. Next, the matching performances of these candidates were determined by invoking a localization algorithm that optimizes information theoretic point similarity measures derived earlier after random initialization at varying distances and directions. In consideration to the best performing point similarity measures and neighborhood radii at landmarks providing successful localization, the mutual information-based point similarity measure evaluated over large neighborhoods was preferred at a conspicuously higher rate than the other alternatives.