Abstract

Purpose: The detection and measurement of retinal vessels is discussed.Methods: A model based on fitting “ribbon of twin” active contour models, that sandwich the vessel edges between contours pulled together by forces, is used. The use of these twins, with a constraining force maintaining approximate vessel width, serves to avoid errors instituted by a variety of noise sources.Results: The method detects vessel segments with high reliability, and is able to measure the vessel width to within sub-pixel accuracy. We present results comparing the performance with reference standard measurements constructed by a number of human assessors.Conclusions: Retinal vascular measurements are potentially extremely useful in the diagnosis of a number of disease.