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The salient information in medical images often visually describes the tissue. To effectively embed salient information in the fused image, a multi-sensor medical image fusion method is proposed based on an embedding bilateral filter in least squares and salient detection via a deformed smoothness constraint. First, source images are decomposed into base and detail layers using a bilateral filter in least squares. Then, the detail layers are treated as superpositions of salient regions and background information; a fusion rule for this layer based on the deformed smoothness constraint and guided filtering was designed to successfully conserve the salient structure and detail information of the source images. A base-layer fusion rule based on modified Laplace energy and local energy is proposed to preserve the energy information of these source images. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperformed nine state-of-the-art methods in both subjective and objective quality assessments on the Harvard Medical School dataset.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s23073490","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,27]],"date-time":"2023-03-27T04:31:21Z","timestamp":1679891481000},"page":"3490","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":25,"title":["Multi-Sensor Medical-Image Fusion Technique Based on Embedding Bilateral Filter in Least Squares and Salient Detection"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"23","author":[{"given":"Jiangwei","family":"Li","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Intelligent Micro-Nano Optoelectronic Technology, School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan 528225, China"}]},{"given":"Dingan","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Intelligent Micro-Nano Optoelectronic Technology, School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan 528225, China"}]},{"given":"Xiaopan","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Guangdong Province Graduate Joint Training Base (Foshan), Foshan University, Foshan 528225, China"}]},{"given":"Peng","family":"Yi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jiangsu Shuguang Photoelectric Co., Ltd., Yangzhou 225009, China"}]},{"given":"Liang","family":"Yan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Jiangsu Shuguang Photoelectric Co., Ltd., Yangzhou 225009, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4672-1527","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xiaosong","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Intelligent Micro-Nano Optoelectronic Technology, School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan 528225, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Goyal, B., Dogra, A., Khoond, R., Gupta, A., and Anand, R. 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