Extraction of optical disc geometrical parameters with using of active snake model with gradient directional information

Abstract

An analysis of the optical disc is challenging task in the field of clinical ophthalmology. Optical disc (OD) is frequently utilized as reference parameter for time evolution of retinal changes therefore, their analysis is significantly important. In the clinical practice, there are especially problem with lower quality of retinal records acquired by retinal probe of RetCam 3, and worse observation of OD area. Therefore, many algorithms are unable to precisely approximate of OD area. We propose a method based on the active snake model carrying out automatic extraction of retinal disc area even in the spots where an OD is not clearly observable, or image edges completely missing. Furthermore, the proposed solution calculates OD centroid, and respective area for further comparison of OD with retinal lesions.