Image Fusion: An Overview

An extensive overview of the field of image fusion is presented in this paper. The study firstly delves into the problem of multiple modalities that form the motivation for fusion, and discusses the main advantages of image fusion. Further, it discusses in detail the history of fusion algorithms that comprise various transform-domain and data driven methods. A section on image fusion applications, ranging from geo-spatial, medical to security fields, is also presented. Overall the paper aims to bring to light the advances and state-of-the-art within the image fusion research area so as to benefit other fields.