Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications (한국정보과학회논문지:소프트웨어및응용)

Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers (한국정보과학회)
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Automatic Tracking of Retinal Vessels by Analyzing Local Feature Points in IndoCyanine Green Retinal Images

ICG 망막영상에서 국부적 특징점 분석에 의한 혈관의 자동 추적

  • 임문철 (광운대학교 컴퓨터과학과) ;
  • 김우생 (광운대학교 컴퓨터과학과)
  • Published : 2002.04.01
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Abstract

During the last few years, the extraction and reconstruction of the blood vessels in the medical image has been actively researched and the analysis for the retinal vessel structure has provided important information for diagnosis and remedy of the retinopathy patients. In this research, we propose the algorithm that tracks automatically the entire retinal vessel in retinal image acquired by the ICG(IndoCyanine Green) technology. This algorithm extracts contours and centers by estimating the local maxima and processing directions and detects bifurcations and junctions by comparing direction components of the local maxima from the gradient magnitude profile of each blood vessel. We present experimental results that the entire blood vessel is automatically reconstructed and is excellent in accuracy and connectivity after applying our algorithm to the ICG retinal images of patients.

최근 수년 동안 의료영상에서 혈관의 추출 및 재구성에 관한 연구가 활발히 진행되어 오고 있으며 망막혈관 구조의 분석은 망막에 관련된 환자의 진단 및 치료에 중요한 정보를 제공하여 왔다. 본 연구에서는 ICG(Indocyanine Green) 기술에 의해 촬영된 망막영상에서 전체 망막혈관을 자동으로 추적하는 알고리즘을 제안한다 본 알고리즘은 각 혈관의 기울기크기 단면도(profile)로부터 국부적 최대점들(local maxima)과 처리방향을 평가하여 혈관의 외형과 중심을 추출하며, 국부적 최대점들의 방향성분을 비교하여 혈관의 분기점 및 교차점을 감지한다. 본 알고리즘을 환자의 ICG 망막영상에 적용하여 전체혈관이 자동으로 재구성되었으며 정확성과 연결성이 우수하다는 점을 실험결과로 제시하였다.

Keywords

References

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