A hierarchical elastic image registration approach based on approximating thin-plate splines

Abstract

We present a hierarchical approach to elastic registration of medical images which use thin-plate splines approximation method. The thin-plate splines approximation method takes into account the landmark localization errors as anisotropic landmark errors. This inclusion is very important in clinical applications, because the landmark localization is always prone to error. Experimental results show that application of this TPS method can improve the registration result of the hierarchical elastic registration approach.