Bio-medical imaging: Localization of main structures in retinal fundus images

Abstract

Retinal fundus images have three main structures, the optic disk, fovea and blood vessels. By examining fundus images, an ophthalmologist can diagnose various clinical disorders of the eye and the body, typically indicated by changes in the diameter, area, branching angles and tortuosity of the three ma in retinal structures. Knowledge of the optic disk position is an important diagnostic index fo r many diseases related to the retina. In this paper, localization of optic disc is discussed. Optic disk detection is based on morphological operationsand smoothing filters. Blood vessels are extracted using the green component of a colour retinal image with the help of a median filter. Maximum intensity values are validated with blood vessels to localize the optic disk location. The proposed method has shown significant improvements in results. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.