Motion compensated image averaging

A method of averaging a sequence of image frames taken from a living object with a fluorescent imaging technique, said method comprising:

• applying a noise-reducing filter to said image frames to generate a sequence of filtered frames;
• applying a deconvolution filter to said sequence of filtered frames to generate a corresponding sequence of deconvolved frames;
• subjecting said deconvolved frames to a motion-correction transformation to generate a sequence of corrected deconvolved frames, wherein the ith corrected deconvolved frame is represented by Jiref(x,y), Jiref being the intensity at image point (x,y) in the ith corrected deconvolved frame;
• transforming said filtered frames by an affine transformation to align said filtered frames, thus generating a sequence of aligned frames, wherein an ith aligned frame is represented by Iia(x,y), Iia being the intensity at image point (x,y) in the ith aligned frame;
• relocating image points in each aligned frame to generate a motion-corrected frame, wherein an ith motion-corrected frame is represented by Iin(x,y), Iin being the intensity at image point (x,y) in the ith motion-corrected frame, Iin(x,y)=Iia(xp,yp), and wherein the location (xp,yp) is selected such that
• (i) said location is within a neighborhood centered around (x,y), and
• (ii) an intensity rank of Iia(xp,yp) in said neighborhood and an intensity rank of Ji-1ref(x,y) in said neighborhood are the same,
• thus generating a sequence of motion-corrected frames;
• and
• averaging said motion-corrected frames to generate a resultant frame.