The nonsubsampled contourlet transform for image fusion

The nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) is one of the new geometrical image transform. This transform uses the nonsubsampled pyramids (NSP) and the nonsubsampled directional filter banks (NSDFB) to obtain a multiscale and multidirection decomposition of image. The NSCT is a shift-invariant transform contrast to the contourlet transform. The multiscale and multidirection image from NSCT is as big as the source image. A image fusion scheme based on the NSCT was presented. Firstly, the NSCT is used to perform a multiscale and multidirection decomposition of each image. Then the NSCT coefficients of fused image are constructed using multiple operators according to different fusion rules. The experimental results show that the fusion scheme is effective and the fused images are better than that of using the Laplacian pyramid transform, the wavelet transform and the contourlet transform.