title: Vessel extraction under non-uniform illumination: a level set approach.
abstract: Vessel extraction is one of the critical tasks in clinical practice. This communication presents a new approach for vessel extraction using a level-set-based active contour by defining a novel local term that takes local image contrast into account. The proposed model not only preserves the performance of the existing models on blurry images, but also overcomes their inability to handle nonuniform illumination. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated with experiments involving both synthetic images and clinical angiograms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong. kwsum@ieee.org
authors.forename: K W
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Sum
authors.forename: Paul Y S
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Cheung
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000792:Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D001808:Blood Vessels; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D008029:Lighting / Q000379:methods*; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity