Rigid registration of 3-D ultrasound with MR images: a new approach combining intensity and gradient information.

Alexis Roche (1) , Xavier Pennec (1) , Grégoire Malandain (1) , Nicholas Ayache (1)

1 EPIDAURE - Medical imaging and robotics

We present a new image-based technique to rigidly register intraoperative three-dimensional ultrasound (US) with preoperative magnetic resonance (MR) images. Automatic registration is achieved by maximization of a similarity measure which generalizes the correlation ratio, and whose novelty is to incorporate multivariate information from the MR data (intensity and gradient). In addition, the similarity measure is built upon a robust intensity-based distance measure, which makes it possible to handle a variety of US artifacts. A cross-validation study has been carried out using a number of phantom and clinical data. This indicates that the method is quite robust and that the worst registration errors are of the order of the MR image resolution.

Domains: Signal and Image Processing; Bioengineering; Signal and Image processing

Alexis Roche, Xavier Pennec, Grégoire Malandain, Nicholas Ayache. Rigid registration of 3-D ultrasound with MR images: a new approach combining intensity and gradient information.. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 2001, 20 (10), pp.1038-49. ⟨10.1109/42.959301⟩. ⟨cea-00333699⟩