Deformable multi-modal image registration by maximizing Rényi's statistical dependence measure

A novel variational model for deformable multi-modal image registration is presented in this work. As an alternative to the models based on maximizing mutual information, the Renyi's statistical dependence measure of two random variables is proposed as a measure of the goodness of matching in our objective functional. The proposed model does not require an estimation of the continuous joint probability density function. Instead, it only needs observed independent instances. Moreover, the theory of reproducing kernel Hilbert space is used to simplify the computation. Experimental results and comparisons with several existing methods are provided to show the effectiveness of the model.