Critical Review of Multi-focus Image Fusion Based on Deep Learning Method

Multi-focus image fusion is an effective image fusion technology, which aims to combine source images from different focal planes of the same scene to obtain a good fusion result. This means that the fused image will focus on all focal planes, that is, it contains more abundant scene information. The development of deep learning promotes the great progress of image fusion, and the powerful feature extraction and reconstruction ability of neural network makes the fusion result promising. In recent years, more and more multi-focus image fusion methods based on deep learning have been proposed, such as convolutional neural network (CNN), generative adversarial network (GAN) and automatic encoder, etc. In order to provide effective reference for relevant researchers and technicians, firstly, this paper introduces the concept of multi-focus image fusion and some evaluation indicators. Then, it analyzes more than ten advanced methods of multi-focus image fusion based on deep learning in recent years, discusses the characteristics and innovation of various methods, and summarizes their advantages and disadvantages. In addition, it reviews the application of multi-focus image fusion technology in various scenes, including photographic visualization, medical diagnosis, remote sensing detection and other fields. Finally, it proposes some challenges faced by current multi-focus image fusion related fields and looks forward to future possible research trends.