Quantifying a blood vessel reflection parameter of the retina
AssigneeCommonwealth Scientific and Industrail Research Organisation
InventorsYogesan Kanagasingam, Alauddin Bhuiyan
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Abstract
A method for quantifying a blood vessel reflection parameter associated with a biological subject, the method including, in at least one electronic processing device determining, from a fundus image of an eye of the subject, edge points of at least one blood vessel in a region near an optic disc, processing the fundus image, at least in part using the edge points, to identify blood vessel edges and central reflex edges, determining blood vessel and central reflex parameter values using the blood vessel edges and determining a blood vessel reflection parameter value at least partially indicative of blood vessel reflection using the blood vessel and central reflex parameter values.
Claims20
A method for quantifying a blood vessel reflection parameter associated with a biological subject, the method including, in at least one electronic processing device:
- a) determining, from a fundus image of an eye of the subject, edge points of at least one blood vessel in a region near an optic disc;
- b) processing the fundus image, at least in part using the edge points, to identify blood vessel edges and central reflex edges;
- c) determining blood vessel and central reflex parameter values using the blood vessel edges;
- and,
- d) determining a blood vessel reflection parameter value at least partially indicative of blood vessel reflection using the blood vessel and central reflex parameter values.
A method for quantifying blood vessel reflection associated with the retina comprising:
- a) selecting edge start-points of a suitable blood vessel around the optic disc area of a digital image of the eye fundus to constitute the edge start points for grading calculations;
- b) automatically region cropping to create a cropped digital image around the edge start points and translating the cropped digital image to create a resultant image appropriately orientated for processing;
- c) processing the resultant image digitally to obtain blood vessel edge and central reflex edge information from the identified vessel edges;
- and
- d) measuring the calibres of the outer edges of the blood vessel and the central reflex from the edge information.
A blood vessel quantification system for quantifying blood vessel reflection associated with the retina comprising:
- a) a user interface for enabling an analyst to interact with the system;
- b) an optic disc (OD) selection process for automatically computing an OD area and a vessel selection (VS) area after the analyst defines the OD centre on the digital image of the fundus using the user interface;
- c) a mapping, processing and measuring (MPM) process including:
- i) an image region selection process for automatically mapping a proximal region around vessel edge start-points and obtaining a selected image for subsequent processing;
- ii) an edge detection and profiling process for automatically processing the selected image to obtain and map the vessel edge and central reflex edge profiles;
- iii) an edge selection process for automatically selecting vessel edges and central reflex edges closest to the vessel edge start-points to calculate the calibre of the outer vessel edges and the central reflex edges;
- and
- iv) a vessel reflection index measurement process for automatically calculating the vessel refection index of the selected vessel;
- wherein the MPM process includes a vessel edge selection process for interactively functioning with the analyst via the user interface to enable the analyst to set the vessel edge start-points from within the VS area after the OD selection process has completed computing the VS area for the MPM process to proceed with performing the aforementioned automated processes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.