Morphological Segmentation of Retinal Blood Vessels and Consequent Tortuosity Extraction

Abstract

Investigation of a retinal blood vessel system is frequently discussed issue in the field of the clinical ophthalmology due to it serves as reliable indicator of retinal damage. The analysis deals with two coherent tasks regarding retinal blood vessels system. Firstly, the algorithm based on the morphological operations is proposed to be able to perform precise extraction and localization of individual blood vessels for further processing. On the base of this segmentation procedure, e obtain a segmentation model differentiating the retinal blood vessels from retinal background. The second step deals with the major output of the analysis it is tortuosity extraction as it is parameter describing curvature of blood vessels. The tortuosity allows for a description of each vessel element by level of a curvature. It is significantly beneficial for clinical practice, because on the base of blood vessel curvature, physiological or damaged retinal system can be recognized.