Selection of image fusion quality measures: objective, subjective, and metric assessment.

Accurate quality assessment of fused images, such as combined visible and infrared radiation images, has become increasingly important with the rise in the use of image fusion systems. We bring together three approaches, applying two objective tasks (local target analysis and global target location) to two scenarios, together with subjective quality ratings and three computational metrics. Contrast pyramid, shift-invariant discrete wavelet transform, and dual-tree complex wavelet transform fusion are applied, as well as levels of JPEG2000 compression. The differing tasks are shown to be more or less appropriate for differentiating among fusion methods, and future directions pertaining to the creation of task-specific metrics are explored. (C) 2007 Optical Society of America.