Research on visible and infrared binocular image fusion algorithm based on improved NSCT

Abstract

With the increasing requirements for describing scene target information in image processing, multi-sensor image fusion has attracted attention and application. Due to the complementary nature of the image characteristics between visible and infrared images, image fusion between the images is possible. This article studies a visible and infrared image fusion algorithm based on NSCT (Non Sampled Contourlet Transform). Based on the original NSCT decomposition, the NSCT decomposition level is adaptively set according to the resolution size of the input source image, ensuring sufficient decomposition for high-resolution images to improve fusion quality, and appropriate decomposition for low-resolution images to reduce decomposition time. For the visible light and infrared images collected by the FLIR AX8 dual band camera, image fusion processing was carried out. Compared with the FLIR AX8 dual band camera, the average gradient index of the fusion image was increased by about 1-2, and the distortion index was reduced by about 20, making it more suitable for observation and subsequent processing.