Vessel segmentation in retina image

Question

I am trying to trace the vessels in a retina image. Currently I am using cv2's threshold functions to make the vessels contrast more with the surrounding retina:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import cv2

img = cv2.imread('misc images/eye.jpeg',0)
img = cv2.medianBlur(img,5)

ret,th1 = cv2.threshold(img,127,255,cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
th2 = cv2.adaptiveThreshold(img,255,cv2.ADAPTIVE_THRESH_MEAN_C,\
            cv2.THRESH_BINARY,11,2)
th3 = cv2.adaptiveThreshold(img,255,cv2.ADAPTIVE_THRESH_GAUSSIAN_C,\
            cv2.THRESH_BINARY,11,2)

titles = ['Original Image', 'Global Thresholding (v = 127)',
            'Adaptive Mean Thresholding', 'Adaptive Gaussian Thresholding']
images = [img, th1, th2, th3]

for i in range(4):
    plt.subplot(2,2,i+1),plt.imshow(images[i],'gray')
    plt.title(titles[i])
    plt.xticks([]),plt.yticks([])
plt.show()

And this is the result:

All 3 methods still have a lot of background noise from the rest of the retina. What can I do to improve the accuracy of vessel tracing?

user_7355741 · Answer

Here is another way to threshold your image using division normalization followed by filtering on contour area.

Read the input
Convert to gray
Apply morphology dilate (or apply gaussianBlur)
Divide input by dilated result
Threshold
Invert so vessels are white on black background
Find all contours
Filter contours to discard ones that are too small
Draw remaining contours in white on black image as mask
Apply mask to threshold image as first result
Apply mask to input as second result
Save results

Input

import cv2
import numpy as np

# read the image
img = cv2.imread('retina_eye.jpg')

# convert to gray
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img,cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)

# apply morphology
kernel = cv2.getStructuringElement(cv2.MORPH_RECT , (5,5))
morph = cv2.morphologyEx(gray, cv2.MORPH_DILATE, kernel)

# divide gray by morphology image
division = cv2.divide(gray, morph, scale=255)

# threshold
thresh = cv2.threshold(division, 0, 255, cv2.THRESH_OTSU )[1] 

# invert
thresh = 255 - thresh

# find contours and discard contours with small areas
mask = np.zeros_like(thresh)
contours = cv2.findContours(thresh, cv2.RETR_TREE, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)
contours = contours[0] if len(contours) == 2 else contours[1]

area_thresh = 10000
for cntr in contours:
    area = cv2.contourArea(cntr)
    if area > area_thresh:
        cv2.drawContours(mask, [cntr], -1, 255, 2)

# apply mask to thresh
result1 = cv2.bitwise_and(thresh, mask)
mask = cv2.merge([mask,mask,mask])
result2 = cv2.bitwise_and(img, mask)

# save results
cv2.imwrite('retina_eye_division.jpg',division)
cv2.imwrite('retina_eye_thresh.jpg',thresh)
cv2.imwrite('retina_eye_mask.jpg',mask)
cv2.imwrite('retina_eye_result1.jpg',result1)
cv2.imwrite('retina_eye_result2.jpg',result2)

# show results
cv2.imshow('morph', morph)  
cv2.imshow('division', division)  
cv2.imshow('thresh', thresh)  
cv2.imshow('mask', mask)  
cv2.imshow('result1', result1)  
cv2.imshow('result2', result2)  
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

Division image:

Threshold image:

Mask image:

Result 1:

Result 2:

Vessel segmentation in retina image

1 Answers