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Purpose: Diffeomorphic image registration is essential in many medical imaging applications. Several registration algorithms of such type have been proposed, but primarily for intra-contrast alignment. Currently, efficient inter-modal/contrast diffeomorphic registration, which is vital in numerous applications, remains a challenging task.

Methods: We proposed a novel inter-modal/contrast registration algorithm that leverages Robust PaTch-based cOrrelation Ratio metric to allow inter-modal/contrast image alignment and bandlimited geodesic shooting demonstrated in Fourier-Approximated Lie Algebras (FLASH) algorithm for fast diffeomorphic registration.

Results: The proposed algorithm, named DiffeoRaptor, was validated with three public databases for the tasks of brain and abdominal image registration while comparing the results against three state-of-the-art techniques, including FLASH, NiftyReg, and Symmetric image Normalization (SyN).

Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that DiffeoRaptor offered comparable or better registration performance in terms of registration accuracy. Moreover, DiffeoRaptor produces smoother deformations than SyN in inter-modal and contrast registration. The code for DiffeoRaptor is publicly available at https://github.com/nimamasoumi/DiffeoRaptor .