IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0049668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retinal Vessel Width Measurement at Branchings Using an Improved Electric Field Theory-Based Graph Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Xiayu Xu
  • Joseph M Reinhardt
  • Qiao Hu
  • Benjamin Bakall
  • Paul S Tlucek
  • Geir Bertelsen
  • Michael D Abràmoff

Abstract

The retinal vessel width relationship at vessel branch points in fundus images is an important biomarker of retinal and systemic disease. We propose a fully automatic method to measure the vessel widths at branch points in fundus images. The method is a graph-based method, in which a graph construction method based on electric field theory is applied which specifically deals with complex branching patterns. The vessel centerline image is used as the initial segmentation of the graph. Branching points are detected on the vessel centerline image using a set of detection kernels. Crossing points are distinguished from branch points and excluded. The electric field based graph method is applied to construct the graph. This method is inspired by the non-intersecting force lines in an electric field. At last, the method is further improved to give a consistent vessel width measurement for the whole vessel tree. The algorithm was validated on 100 artery branchings and 100 vein branchings selected from 50 fundus images by comparing with vessel width measurements from two human experts.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiayu Xu & Joseph M Reinhardt & Qiao Hu & Benjamin Bakall & Paul S Tlucek & Geir Bertelsen & Michael D Abràmoff, 2012. "Retinal Vessel Width Measurement at Branchings Using an Improved Electric Field Theory-Based Graph Approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-9, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0049668
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0049668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0049668
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0049668&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0049668?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0049668. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.