Description

DEPRECATED: Please use separate automatic and manual modules instead.

Apply slice-by-slice (2D) affine-based image registration to a multi-dimensional stack. Images can be aligned relative to the first frame in the stack, the previous frame or a separate image in the workspace. The registration transform can also be calculated from a separate stack to the one that it will be applied to. Registration is performed along the time axes and applied equally to all Z-slices. For greater control (including registration along Z) please use separate automatic and manual modules instead.

This module uses the Feature Extraction and Linear Stack Alignment with SIFT plugins to detect SIFT ("Scale Invariant Feature Transform") features from the input images and calculate and apply the necessary 2D affine transforms.

Note: The SIFT-algorithm is protected by U.S. Patent 6,711,293: Method and apparatus for identifying scale invariant features in an image and use of same for locating an object in an image by the University of British Columbia. That is, for commercial applications the permission of the author is required. Anything else is published under the terms of the GPL, so feel free to use it for academic or personal purposes.

References:

Parameters

Input image (default = "") Image from workspace to apply registration to.

Apply to input image (default = "true") When selected, the post-operation image will overwrite the input image in the workspace. Otherwise, the image will be saved to the workspace with the name specified by the "Output image" parameter.

Output image (default = "") If "Apply to input image" is not selected, the post-operation image will be saved to the workspace with this name.

Transformation mode (default = "Rigid") Controls the type of registration being applied:

Alignment mode (default = "Automatic (feature extraction)") Controls whether the registration is determined automatically through SIFT feature extraction or manually, by a user selecting reference points on a pair of images.
Fill mode (default = "Black") Controls what intensity any border pixels will have. "Borders" in this case correspond to strips/wedges at the image edge corresponding to regions outside the initial image (e.g. the right-side of an output image when the input was translated to the left). Choices are: Black, White.
Enable multithreading (default = "true") When selected, certain parts of the registration process will be run on multiple threads of the CPU. This can provide a speed improvement when working on a computer with a multi-core CPU.

Relative mode (default = "First frame") Controls what reference image each image will be compared to:

Rolling correction (default = "None") Controls whether the entire stack is moved at specific intervals. When enabled ("Every nth frame"), any remaining unregistered images will be moved to match the present transform. This is only available when registering relative to the previous frame and is intended to prevent the difference between the previous frame (registered) and unregistered images becoming too large. The frame interval at which this transformation is applied to the unregistered images is specified using "Correction interval". Note: This can lead to images becoming increasingly blurry as they are passed through multiple interpolation steps.
Correction interval (default = "1") If applying rolling correction, this is the frame interval at which the transformation will be applied to the unregistered images.

Reference image (default = "") If "Relative mode" is set to "Specific image" mode, all input images will be registered relative to this image. This image must only have a single channel, slice and timepoint.

Calculation source (default = "Internal") Controls whether the input image will be used to calculate the registration transform or whether it will be determined from a separate image:

External source (default = "") If "Calculation source" is set to "External", registration transforms will be calculated using this image from the workspace. This image will be unaffected by the process.

Calculation channel (default = "1") If calculating the registration transform from a multi-channel image stack, the transform will be determined from this channel only. Irrespectively, for multi-channel image stacks, the calculated transform will be applied equally to all channels.

Initial Gaussian blur (px) (default = "1.6") "Accurate localization of keypoints requires initial smoothing of the image. If your images are blurred already, you might lower the initial blur σ0 slightly to get more but eventually less stable keypoints. Increasing σ0 increases the computational cost for Gaussian blur, setting it to σ0=3.2px is equivalent to keep σ0=1.6px and use half maximum image size. Tip: Keep the default value σ0=1.6px as suggested by Lowe (2004).". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction

Steps per scale (default = "3") "Keypoint candidates are extracted at all scales between maximum image size and minimum image size. This Scale Space is represented in octaves each covering a fixed number of discrete scale steps from σ0 to 2σ0. More steps result in more but eventually less stable keypoint candidates. Tip: Keep 3 as suggested by Lowe (2004) and do not use more than 10.". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction

Minimum image size (px) (default = "64") "The Scale Space stops if the size of the octave would be smaller than minimum image size. Tip: Increase the minimum size to discard large features (i.e. those extracted from looking at an image from far, such as the overall shape).". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction

Maximum image size (px) (default = "1024") "The Scale Space starts with the first octave equal or smaller than the maximum image size. Tip: By reducing the size, fine scaled features will be discarded. Increasing the size beyond that of the actual images has no effect.". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction

Feature descriptor size (default = "4") "The SIFT-descriptor consists of n×n gradient histograms, each from a 4×4px block. n is this value. Lowe (2004) uses n=4. We found larger descriptors with n=8 perform better for Transmission Electron Micrographs from serial sections.". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction

Feature descriptor orientation bins (default = "8") "For SIFT-descriptors, this is the number of orientation bins b per 4×4px block as described above. Tip: Keep the default value b=8 as suggested by Lowe (2004).". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction

Closest/next closest ratio (default = "0.92") "Correspondence candidates from local descriptor matching are accepted only if the Euclidean distance to the nearest neighbour is significantly smaller than that to the next nearest neighbour. Lowe (2004) suggests a ratio of r=0.8 which requires some increase when matching things that appear significantly distorted.". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction

Maximal alignment error (px) (default = "25.0") "Matching local descriptors gives many false positives, but true positives are consistent with respect to a common transformation while false positives are not. This consistent set and the underlying transformation are identified using RANSAC. This value is the maximal allowed transfer error of a match to be counted as a good one. Tip: Set this to about 10% of the image size.". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction

Inlier ratio (default = "0.05") "The ratio of the number of true matches to the number of all matches including both true and false used by RANSAC. 0.05 means that minimally 5% of all matches are expected to be good while 0.9 requires that 90% of the matches were good. Only transformations with this minimal ratio of true consent matches are accepted. Tip: Do not go below 0.05 (and only if 5% is more than about 7 matches) except with a very small maximal alignment error to avoid wrong solutions.". Description taken from https://imagej.net/Feature_Extraction