Interactive Optic Disk Segmentation via Discrete Convexity Shape Knowledge Using High-Order Functionals

Purpose: Segmentation of the vessel tree from retinal fundus images can be used to track changes in the retina and be an important first step in a diagnosis. Manual segmentation is a time-consuming process that is prone to error; effective and reliable automation can alleviate these problems but one of the difficulties is uneven image background, which may affect segmentation performance. Approach: We present a patch-based deep learning framework, based on a modified U-Net architecture, that automatically segments the retinal blood vessels from fundus images. In particular, we evaluate how various pre-processing techniques, images with either no processing, N4 bias field correction, contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE), or a combination of N4 and CLAHE, can compensate for uneven image background and impact final segmentation performance. Results: We achieved competitive results on three publicly available datasets as a benchmark for our comparisons of pre-processing techniques. In addition, we introduce Bayesian statistical testing, which indicates little practical difference ( ) between pre-processing methods apart from the sensitivity metric. In terms of sensitivity and pre-processing, the combination of N4 correction and CLAHE performs better in comparison to unprocessed and N4 pre-processing ( ); but compared to CLAHE alone, the differences are not significant ( to 0.88). Conclusions: We conclude that deep learning is an effective method for retinal vessel segmentation and that CLAHE pre-processing has the greatest positive impact on segmentation performance, with N4 correction helping only in images with extremely inhomogeneous background illumination.

In the recent era, the increasing diabetic ratio effects in producing complex retinal diseases. The early diagnosis will avoid the consequences of diabetic-related complications. So, there is an urge to develop a computerized model for identifying the retinopathy features caused due to diabetes while evading the false positives. The aim of this paper is to identify and segment the retinal features like blood vessels, optic disc in diabetic retinopathy (DR) fundus images in order to remove the non-diabetic retinopathy features which makes the detection of DR features (lesions) easier. And this is done by using a hybrid segmentation algorithm called BINI which combines the model of both binary and Niblack’s thresholding. Initially, the input image is standardized by resizing the image using bi-cubic interpolation area method. Then, the fundus image quality is enhanced using preprocessing techniques like green channel extraction, intensity channel extraction, median filtering, contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization and morphological operations. The preprocessed images are segmented to produce retinal features using the BINI algorithm. It is a novel method which hybrids both binary thresholding and Niblack’s thresholding. The performance of the segmentation methods is evaluated using the validation measures like Rand index (Ri) and Jaccard index (Ji), Precision (Pr), Recall (Rc) and F-Measure (Fm). The proposed method for segmenting the retinal features using BINI thresholding has given an accuracy of about 96.48%; it leads to an accuracy of 100% clear segmentation of the lesions of diabetic retinopathy images.

Vascular diseases cause tortuosity in the retinal blood vessel's structure which can be identified using fundus images.The computerized retinal vessel tortuosity diagnosis is suffered from high time consuming and less accuracy due to the less effective retinal vessel segmentation algorithms.The success of retinal vessel tortuosity diagnosis depends on the performance quality of the vessel segmentation algorithm.Hence, this research proposes a new retinal vessel segmentation method, namely 'Retinal Vessel Segmentation using CLAHE and VJSTFD (RVSCV)'.The proposed segmentation method separates the vessel region from the background, tissue region, and Optic Disc (OD).It is constituted by two algorithms, viz.(i) vessel enhancement based on Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) and (ii) Vessel Joining algorithm based on vessel Skeletonization and Tetra vessel Flow Directions (VJSTFD).The CLAHE method, which is an existing method, enhances the vessel structure.The main contribution of this paper is the VJSTFD algorithm, which is a novel method to segment the vessel region from the enhanced fundus image.The VJSTFD algorithm makes a binary segmentation and joints the broken vessels in a novel approach through vessel skeletonization and tetra vessel flow directions-based vessel extension.The specialty of this approach is that minute vessels are also captured for segmentation even at the low contrast level because of the proposed preeminence vessel joining approach that is powered by tetra direction-based vessel searching.The CHASE_DB, RITE_DB, and STARE_DB databases have been involved in the testing process.These databases have retinal fundus images which clearly exposes the retinal vessel areas.Experimental results reveal that the proposed RVSCV method accomplishes the overall average F-score of 0.9580, along with the average segmentation accuracy of 96.73% in retinal vessel segmentation.The proposed method can be activated as a tool for ophthalmologists to extract the vessel course essentially.

Automatic Detection and Classification of Diabetic Retinopathy from Retinal Fundus Images by Abdullah Biran, Master of Applied Science, lectrical and computer engineering Department, Ryerson University, 2017. Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is an eye disease that leads to blindness when it progresses to proliferative level. The earliest signs of DR are the appearance of red and yellow lesions on the retina called hemorrhages and exudates. Early diagnosis of DR prevents from blindness. In this thesis, an automatic algorithm for detecting diabetic retinopathy is presented. The algorithm is based on combination of several image processing techniques including Circular Hough Transform (CHT), Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE), Gabor filter and thresholding. In addition, Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier is used to classify retinal images into normal or abnormal cases of DR including non-proliferative (NPDR) or proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). The proposed method has been tested on fundus images from Standard Diabetic Retinopathy Database (DIARETDB). The implementation of the presented methodology was done in MATLAB. The methodology is tested for sensitivity and accuracy.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the micro vascular changes that cause detectable changes in the optic disc. This paper aims at the detection of retinal exudates and other features such as blood vessels and optic disc from fundus image. The two methods are implemented for the detection of exudates they are morphological method and FCM clustering method. Contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLACHE) is used to extract the green component in the image. In blood vessel extraction, blood vessels are extracted by top hat transformation followed by connected component analysis. The optic disc centre is found using Circular Hough Transform (CHT) and propagation through radii method is employed and the entire optic disc region is blackened and removed. Exudates detection is the important characteristics of diabetic retinopathy and its varies depends upon the severity of the DR. The FCM method used to detect exudates. The overall sensitivity, specificity and accuracy are calculated and 98% accuracy obtained.

Retinal fundus image is a crucial tool for ophthalmologists to diagnose eye-related diseases. These images provide visual information of the interior layer of the retina structures such as optic disc, optic cup, blood vessels and macula that can assist ophthalmologist in determining the health of an eye. Segmentation of blood vessels in fundus images is one of the most fundamental phase in detecting diseases such as diabetic retinopathy. However, the ambiguity of the retina structures in the retinal fundus images presents a challenge for researcher to segment the blood vessels. Extensive pre-processing and training of the images is necessary for precise segmentation, which is very intricate and laborious. This paper proposes the implementation of object-oriented-based metadata (OOM) structures of each pixel in the retinal fundus images. These structures comprise of additional metadata towards the conventional red, green, and blue data for each pixel within the images. The segmentation of the blood vessels in the retinal fundus images are performed by considering these additional metadata that enunciates the location, color spaces, and neighboring pixels of each individual pixel. From the results, it is shown that accurate segmentation of retinal fundus blood vessels can be achieved by purely employing straightforward thresholding method via the OOM structures without extensive pre-processing image processing technique or data training.

The retinal blood vessels segmentation algorithm is a powerful tool for the early detection of ophthalmic and cardiovascular diseases and biometrics of the automatic tracking system. Accurate segmentation of blood vessels from a retinal image plays a significant role in the prudent examination of the vessels. Therefore, a combined algorithm of a supervised generalized linear model and an unsupervised contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization is proposed in this paper. Using a generalized linear model integrated with multi-scale information by Gabor wavelet transform, the proposed supervised process can extract more prominent features of retinal blood vessels. Besides, the contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization uses the local histogram equalization, which can handle the illumination variation and adjust the enlargement of details. The method is evaluated on a publicly available DRIVE dataset, as it contains ground truth images precisely marked by experts. The segmentation results show that the proposed method can segment the blood vessels accurately.

Diabetic retinopathy is a kind of disorder which occurs due to high blood sugar level. This disorder affects retina in many ways. Blood vessels in the retina gets altered . Exudates are secreted, hemorrhages occur, swellings appear in the retina. Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is the major cause of blindness. Automatic Recognition of DR lesions like Exudates, in digital fundus images can contribute to the diagnosis and screening of this disease. In this approach, an automatic and efficient method to detect the exudates is proposed. The real time retinal images are obtained from a nearby hospital. The retinal images are pre-processed via. Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE). The preprocessed colour retinal images are segmented using K-Means Clustering technique. The segmented images establish a dataset of regions. To classify these segmented regions into Exudates and Non-Exudates, a set of features based on colour and texture are extracted. Classification is done using support Vector Machine This method appears promising as it can detect the very small areas of exudates. Keywords - Diabetic Retinopathy, Exudates, fundus image, k means clustering, SVM I. INTRODUCTION The retina is the inner and most important layer of the eye. It is composed of several important anatomical structures which can indicate various diseases. Cardiovascular disease such as stroke and myocardial infarcation can be identified from retinal blood vessels. Diabetic Retinopathy is the common retinal complication associated with diabetes. It is a major cause of blindness in both middle and advanced age groups. The International Diabetes Federation reports that over 50 million people in India have this disease and it is growing rapidly (IDF 2009a) (2). The estimated prevalence of diabetes for all age groups worldwide was 2.8% in 2000 and 4.4% in 2030 meaning that the total number of diabetes patients is forecasted to rise from 171 million in 2000 to 366 million in 2030 (3). Therefore regular screening is the most efficient way of reducing the vision loss. Diabetic Retinopathy is mainly caused by the changes in the blood vessels of the retina due to

Digital chest radiography offers many advantages over filmbased radiography, such as immediate image display, no film processing and room storage, wider dynamic range and lower radiation dose. In general, a raw X-ray image acquired directly from a digital flat detector contains poor quality of image, which may not be suitable for diagnosis and treatment planning. Therefore, a pre-processing technique is usually required to enhance image quality. This paper presents an improved image enhancement on digital chest radiography using the so-called N-CLAHE method, which is based on global and local enhancement. The proposed technique consists of two main steps. Firstly, intensity correction of the raw image is encountered by the log-normalization function which adjusts the intensity contrast of the image dynamically. Secondly, the Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) method is used for enhancing small details, textures and local contrast of the images. The proposed approach was tested using a radiographic survey phantom and a radiographic chest phantom and compared with conventional enhancement methods, such as histogram equalization, unsharp masking, CLAHE. The results show that the proposed N-CLAHE method yields great improvement on the pre-processing correction for digital chest radiography.

Several diseases have adverb effect on visual system of human visual system (eye) and diabetes is leading one among them. Prolong and uncontrolled diabetic patient is prone to Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). DR is asymptomatic disease hence requires detection in early stages to avoid big loss in vision. It shows immediate necessity of screening system to access eye images and analyze for DR detection. Microaneurysms (MAs) are primary lesion of DR, so their detection can give time for patient and ophthalmologist to prevent further vision loss. Region growing segmentation method is proposed for accurate detection of MAs. The preprocessing of retinal images uses non local means (NLM) filter and contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) for noise removal and enhancement image quality. In segmentation, region growing algorithm in which the seeds for the grower are selected and positioned by means of Forstner Corner Detection theory is utilized. After segmentation, the redundant areas are removed using morphological operations (Niblack Adaptive Thresholding) and finally the Predator prey optimizer is used for optimizing the features for MA detection.

The identification of COVID-19 using chest X-ray (CXR) images plays a critical role in managing the pandemic by providing a rapid, non-invasive, and accessible diagnostic tool. This study evaluates the impact of different image preprocessing techniques on the performance of deep learning models for COVID-19 classification based on COVID-19 Radiography Database, which includes 10,192 normal CXR images, 6012 lung opacity (non-COVID lung infection) images, and 1345 viral pneumonia images. Along with the images, corresponding lung masks are also included to aid in the segmentation and analysis of lung regions. Specifically, three convolutional neural network (CNN) models were developed, each using a distinct preprocessing method: Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE), traditional histogram equalization, and no preprocessing. The results revealed that while the CLAHE-enhanced model achieved the highest training accuracy (93.26%) and demonstrated superior stability during training, it showed lower performance in the validation phase, with validation accuracy of 91.31%. In contrast, the model with no preprocessing, which exhibited slightly lower training accuracy (92.98%), outperformed the CLAHE model during validation, achieving the highest validation accuracy of 91.50% and the lowest validation loss. The histogram equalization model demonstrated performance similar to that of CLAHE but with slightly higher validation loss and accuracy compared to the unprocessed model. These findings suggest that while CLAHE excels in enhancing image details during training, it may lead to overfitting and reduced generalization ability. In contrast, the model without preprocessing showed the best generalization and stability, indicating that preprocessing techniques should be chosen carefully to balance feature enhancement with the need for generalization in real-world applications. This study underscores the importance of selecting appropriate image preprocessing techniques to enhance deep learning models' performance in medical image classification, particularly for COVID-19 detection. Histogram Equalization The results contribute to ongoing efforts to optimize diagnostic tools using AI and image processing.

A contrast enhancement method for improving the segmentation of breast lesions on ultrasonography

Retinal image analysis: Concepts, applications and potential

The structure and appearance of the blood vessel network in retinal fundus images is an essential part of diagnosing various problems associated with the eyes, such as diabetes and hypertension. In this paper, an automatic retinal vessel segmentation method utilizing matched filter techniques coupled with an AdaBoost classifier is proposed. The fundus image is enhanced using morphological operations, the contrast is increased using contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) method and the inhomogeneity is corrected using Retinex approach. Then, the blood vessels are enhanced using a combination of B-COSFIRE and Frangi matched filters. From this preprocessed image, different statistical features are computed on a pixel-wise basis and used in an AdaBoost classifier to extract the blood vessel network inside the image. Finally, the segmented images are postprocessed to remove the misclassified pixels and regions. The proposed method was validated using publicly accessible Digital Retinal Images for Vessel Extraction (DRIVE), Structured Analysis of the Retina (STARE) and Child Heart and Health Study in England (CHASE_DB1) datasets commonly used for determining the accuracy of retinal vessel segmentation methods. The accuracy of the proposed segmentation method was comparable to other state of the art methods while being very close to the manual segmentation provided by the second human observer with an average accuracy of 0.972, 0.951 and 0.948 in DRIVE, STARE and CHASE_DB1 datasets, respectively.

To characterize the optic disc and retinal vessels in healthy children and adolescents. Fundus photographs were evaluated by digital image analysis in one hundred healthy Swedish children and adolescents (3-19 years). Median optic disc area was 2.67 mm2 (range, 1.93 to 4.39), median cup area was 0.41 mm2 (range, 0 to 1.45) and median neuroretinal rim area was 2.24 mm2 (range, 1.60 to 3.05). The size of the cup and neuroretinal rim increased with increasing size of the optic disc. There were no correlations between the measured variables and age, sex or refraction. The measurements of optic disc size in healthy children, between 3 and 19 years of age, are in accordance with optic disc values found in most studies on adults. The resulting reference intervals may be helpful in clinical pediatric ophthalmology, to facilitate identification of children with abnormal optic disc and retinal vessel morphology.