Objective image fusion quality evaluation using structural similarity

Objective evaluations of fused images are important in comparing the performance of different image fusion algorithms. This paper describes a structural similarity metric that does not use a reference image for image fusion evaluations. The metric is based on the universal image quality index and addresses not only the similarities between the input images and the fused image, but also the similarities among the input images. The evaluation process distinguishes between complementary information and redundant information using similarities among the input images. The metric uses the information classification to estimate how much structural similarity is preserved in the fused image. Tests demonstrate that the metric correlates well with subjective evaluations of the fused images.