Novel approach for extraction of blood vessels using morphology and filtering techniques

Edge detection is the method by which we detect the points in an image where the image properties such as brightness or sharpness changes drastically. Some of the edge detection techniques are Canny edge detection, Edge thinning, Morphological edge detection, etc. In medical field we can apply edge detection to perform various operations such as detection of fracture in the bones in X-ray images, extraction of blood vessels, etc. The retina is a light-sensitive layer of tissue, lining the inner surface of the eye. The disorder of blood vessels in Retina usually leads to problems such as Vitreous Hemorrhage, Retinal vein occlusions, diabetic retinopathy. In this paper, we apply edge detection to extract retinal blood vessels to identify the defects in it. Here we use Morphological approach to extract the blood vessels. Then we apply Gaussian High Pass Filter to enhance the edge information in the image. We further apply weiner filter for noise reduction in final obtained image.