The multiscale bowler-hat transform for blood vessel enhancement in retinal images

Sazak C., Nelson C. J., Obara B.

PATTERN RECOGNITION, vol.88, pp.739-750, 2019 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 88
  • Publication Date: 2019
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/j.patcog.2018.10.011
  • Journal Name: PATTERN RECOGNITION
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.739-750
  • Keywords: Image enhancement, Mathematical morphology, Bowler-hat transform, Blood vessel enhancement, MATHEMATICAL MORPHOLOGY, GRAY-LEVEL, SEGMENTATION, EDGE
  • Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Affiliated: No

Abstract

Enhancement, followed by segmentation, quantification and modelling of blood vessels in retinal images plays an essential role in computer-aided retinopathy diagnosis. In this paper, we introduce the bowler-hat transform method a new approach based on mathematical morphology for vessel enhancement. The proposed method combines different structuring elements to detect innate features of vessel like structures. We evaluate the proposed method qualitatively and quantitatively and compare it with the state-of-the-art methods using both synthetic and real datasets. Our results establish that the proposed method achieves high-quality vessel-like structure enhancement in both synthetic examples and clinically relevant retinal images. The bowler-hat transform is shown to be able to detect fine vessels while still remaining robust at junctions. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.