Multi-Focus Image Fusion Based on Spatial Frequency and Consistency Verification in DCT Domain

Multi-focus is a technique of focusing on different aspects of a particular object or scene. Wireless Visual Sensor Networks (WVSN) use multi-focus image fusion, which combines two or more images to create a more accurate output image that describes the scene better than any individual input image. WVSN has various applications, including video surveillance, monitoring, and tracking. Therefore, a high-level analysis of these networks can benefit Biometrics. This paper introduces an algorithm that utilizes discrete cosine transform (DCT) standards to fuse multi-focus images in WVSNs. The spatial frequency (SF) of the corresponding blocks from the source images determines the fusion criterion. The blocks with higher spatial frequencies make up the DCT presentation of the fused image, and the Consistency Verification (CV) procedure is used to enhance the output image quality. The proposed fusion method was tested on multiple pairs of multi-focus images coded on JPEG standard to evaluate the fusion performance, and the results indicate that it improves the visual quality of the output image and outperforms other DCT-based techniques.