Methods and systems for processing a first image with reference to a second image

An image registration method of processing a first image into a registered image Y* which is aligned with a second image, the method comprising:

• using at least one processor for:
• (a) determining a scale factor “a” between the first image and the second image;
• (b) equalizing the sizes of the first image and the second image by resizing the first image with the scale factor “a” to generate a resized version of the first image;
• (c) using Radon transforms for determining a rotation angle “θ0” between the resized version of the first image and the second image;
• (d) rotating the resized version of the first image by the rotation angle “−θ0” and outputting it as the registered image Y* after translating it to be aligned horizontally and vertically with the second image.

A system for processing a distorted image Y into a registered image Y* by aligning it with a reference image X, comprising:

• a processor;
• a computer readable storage medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon for execution by the processor, forming:
• a Scaling Factor Estimation module for determining a scale factor “a”;
• an Image Resizing module for resizing the distorted image Y into a resized Distorted Image Y2 using the scale factor “a”;
• a Rotation Angle Determination unit for estimating a rotation angle “θ0”;
• an Image Rotation module for rotating the resized Distorted Image Y2 by the rotation angle “−θ0” to form a corrected image Y3;
• and
• an Image Translation module for translating the corrected image Y3 to generate the Registered Image Y*.