title: Tracing retinal blood vessels by matrix-forest theorem of directed graphs.
abstract: This paper aims to trace retinal blood vessel trees in fundus images. This task is far from being trivial as the crossover of vessels are commonly encountered in image-based vessel networks. Meanwhile it is often crucial to separate the vessel tree structures in applications such as diabetic retinopathy analysis. In this work, a novel directed graph based approach is proposed to cast the task as label propagation over directed graphs, such that the graph is to be partitioned into disjoint sub-graphs, or equivalently, each of the vessel trees is traced and separated from the rest of the vessel network. Then the tracing problem is addressed by making novel usage of the matrix-forest theorem in algebraic graph theory. Empirical experiments on synthetic as well as publicly available fundus image datasets demonstrate the applicability of our approach.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Jaydeep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: De
authors.forename: Xiaowei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Huiqi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012164:Retinal Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D012171:Retinal Vessels / Q000473:pathology*; D042262:Retinoscopy / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity