Image fusion based on region structure similarity and contourlet transform

In order to improve the quality of fusion image integrated by infrared and visible images, so that it is more suitable for human and computer vision or processing. A two-step fusion method, that is region structure similarity and Contourlet transform, is presented. With the blocking idea, source images are fused by using region structure similarity, region energy ratio and region clarity ratio to obtain the first fusion image. Then the first fusion image and two source images are decomposed by taking Contourlet transform, and low frequency components use region variance weighting rule, high frequency components adopt multi-scale analysis. Experimental results prove that our proposed method can improve subjective visual effect of the image. Meanwhile objective evaluation indexes entropy, standard deviation, average gradient and mutual information are increased.