Multi-Modal Image Fusion via Convolutional Morphological Component Analysis and Guided Filter

Abstract

In feature-level image fusion, deep learning technology, particularly convolutional sparse representation (SR) theory, has emerged as a new topic over the past three years. This paper proposes an effective image fusion method based on convolution SR, namely, convolutional sparsity-based morphological component analysis and guided filter (CS-MCA-GF). The guided filter operator and choose-max coefficient fusion scheme introduced in this method can effectively eliminate the artifacts generated by the morphological components in the linear fusion, and maintain the pixel saliency of the source images. Experiments show that the proposed method can achieve an excellent performance in multi-modal image fusion, which includes medical image fusion.