Title: Infrared and visible image fusion based on improved NSCT and NSST

Authors: Shahid Karim; Geng Tong; Muhammad Shakir; Asif Ali Laghari; Syed Wajid Ali Shah

Addresses: Research and Development Institute of Northwestern Polytechnical University in Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518057, China; College of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China; Key Laboratory of Micro/Nano Systems for Aerospace, Ministry of Education, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China; Shaanxi Province Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Electro-Mechanical Systems, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 701172, China ' Research and Development Institute of Northwestern Polytechnical University in Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518057, China; College of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China; Key Laboratory of Micro/Nano Systems for Aerospace, Ministry of Education, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China; Shaanxi Province Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Electro-Mechanical Systems, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 701172, China ' Department of Computer Systems Engineering, Hamdard University, Karachi, Pakistan ' Department of Computer Science, Sindh Madressatul Islam University, Karachi, Pakistan ' Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia

Abstract: Image fusion has several critical applications, which reveals its importance. The substantial information from infrared and visible images can be combined with effective image fusion. There is ample destroyable directional information that cannot be leveraged by several image fusion methods, specifically, the images taken from a long distance, with low resolution, in the dark, during bad weather, and many more. To address these problems, we have improved the non-subsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) and non-subsampled shearlet transform (NSST) by adaptive pre-processing. This paper also describes the basic structure, working principle, limitations, and applications of NSCT and NSST. Furthermore, we have presented multiple fusion results and explained the differences. Finally, we have discussed the pros and cons and a few recommendations for improving NSCT and NSST.

Keywords: wavelet; contourlet; shearlet; image fusion; multimodal.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESDF.2024.138334

International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 2024 Vol.16 No.3, pp.284 - 303

Received: 30 Nov 2022
Accepted: 10 Jan 2023
Published online: 01 May 2024 *

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