Image Fusion Metrics – A Systematic Study

Abstract

When two input images with different focus areas are combined in such a way that resultant image is leveraged with all the required and pertinent information to fulfil the purpose of study and research as well as per the observer, then all this process is known as multi-focus image fusion procedure. But how will be able to know that fused image is as per the required standard? To fulfil this objective, having performance metrics in the field of image fusion. To assess the quality of the resultant image, performance metrics are used as an evaluation parameter estimators. After completing fusion process, the resultant fused image is whether as per the requirement or not, whether it possesses all the pertinent information, to make sure there is no loss of information in the final resultant image, the need of fusion performance metrics comes into the picture. In this paper, subjective as well as objective fusion metrics have been studied to have an in-depth understanding of the suitability of the respective performance parameters so that it can be easily concluded that at what stage which metrics will provide the better results.

Keywords: Fusion metrics, quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, performance metrics.