Efficient algorithms for geodesic shooting in diffeomorphic image registration

Abstract

Diffeomorphic image registration is a common problem in medical image analysis. Here, one searches for a diffeomorphic deformation that maps one image (the moving or template image) onto another image (the fixed or reference image). We can formulate the search for such a map as a PDE constrained optimization problem. These types of problems are computationally expensive. This gives rise to the need for efficient algorithms. After introducing the PDE constrained optimization problem, we derive the first and second order optimality conditions. We discretize the problem using a pseudo-spectral discretization in space and consider Heun's method and the semi-Lagrangian method for the time integration of the PDEs that appear in the optimality system. To solve this optimization problem, we consider an L-BFGS and an inexact Gauss-Newton-Krylov method. To reduce the cost of solving the linear system that arises in Newton-type methods, we investigate different preconditioners. They exploit the structure of the Hessian, and use algorithms to efficiently compute an approximation to its inverse. Further, we build the preconditioners on a coarse grid to further reduce computational costs. The different methods are evaluated for two-dimensional image data (real and synthetic). We study the spectrum of the different building blocks that appear in the Hessian. It is demonstrated that low rank preconditioners are able to significantly reduce the number of iterations needed to solve the linear system in Newton-type optimizers. We then compare different optimization methods based on their overall performance. This includes the accuracy and time-to-solution. L-BFGS turns out to be the best method, in terms of runtime, if we solve solving for large gradient tolerances. If we are interested in computing accurate solutions with a small gradient norm, an inexact Gauss-Newton-Krylov optimizer with the regularization term as preconditioner performs best.