A divide et impera strategy for automatic

classification of retinal vessels into arteries and veins

Enrico Grisan, Alfredo Ruggeri

Abstract The first pathologic alterations of the retina are seen in the vessel network. These modifications affect very differently arteries and
veins, and the appearance and entity of the modification differ as the retinopathy becomes milder or more severe. In order to
develop an automatic procedure for the diagnosis and grading of retinopathy, it is necessary to be able to discriminate arteries from
veins. The problem is complicated by the similarity in the descriptive features of these two structures and by the contrast and
luminosity variability of the retina. We developed a new algorithm for classifying the vessels, which exploits the peculiarities of
retinal images. By applying a divide et impera approach that partitioned a concentric zone around the optic disc into quadrants, we
were able to perform a more robust local classification analysis. A comparison with manual classification is reported.

Introduction Vessel Network Structure Impera

The first changes in the retina that point out the onset of a retinopathy, e.g. from a Specific structure for both arterial and venous network: ¾Vessel sample points pooled together, separately for each retina region.
systemic disease, appear in the vessels. ¾For each vessel sample point, a circular neighborhood of radius dependent on the
¾ Changes in vessel structure can affect very differently arteries and veins. ¾Main vessels emerge at the optic disc sample vessel caliber is considered.
¾ A number of disease indicators need a distinction between arteries and veins ¾Follow a double-parabolic path by branching and thinning ¾The mean of the hue values of the points belonging to this neighborhood, and the
(e.g. focal arteriolar narrowing, venous beading, generalized arteriolar narrowing) ¾At a small distance from the optic disc border, vessels are distributed in a variance of their red values are the features considered
balanced way. In Fig. 4 are shown the main vessel arcades. ¾In every region, a fuzzy c-mean classifier divides the pooled points into artery
¾ Inter- and intra-image contrast, luminosity and color variability points and vein points.
¾ Fading of the differences between the two types of vessels in the periphery of ¾An empirical probability P for each vessel segment to be an artery (or vein) can
Main supero-temporal vein
the retina be determined
¾ Appearance variability of vessels of the same class (artery or vein ) when distant Main supero-nasal artery
but within the same image (see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). Quadrant-wise classification is more robust against that obtained considering the
Main supero-nasal vein whole concentric zone about the optic disk (Fig. 6)
It would be even more confounding considering vessel points gathered from the
whole fundus image.

Main supero-temporal artery

Main infero-nasal vein

Main infero-temporal vein
Figure 1a: Two arteries and a vein from the same image Figure 1b: Features for manually sampled points of the vessels

Main infero-nasal artery

Main infero-temporal artery

Figure 4 Main vessel arcades around the optic disc: it is clear the quasi-radial layout Figure 6. Fetures distribution (red points for arteriey and blue points for vein) and classifier threshold (euclidean iso-distance from the
cluster centers) in the case of division of the concentric zone in four regions (left panel), and considering it as a whole (right panel)

Figure 2a: Arteries from different position within Figure 2b: Features for manually sampled points of the vessels
Divide Results and discussion
the same image ¾The algorithm was tested on 435 automatically-tracked vessel segments, coming from
¾Vessels may be classified reasonably well only in an area around the optic disc. In 35 different fundus images.
Conventional techniques trying a global classification will fail for the presence of the periphery of the image (far from the optic disc) they become almost ¾Overall classification error of 12.4%
these intra-class features dissimilarities and inter-class features similarities. Even undistinguishable. ¾Classification error of 6.7% considering only the major vessels. These major vessels
high order nonlinear classifier are not able to handle this type of classification in a ¾Only vessels close to each other can be reliably recognized as arteries or veins by represent the 61% of the entire vessel set analized.
simple way. direct comparison, without any further semantic knowledge.
Fig. 7 shows an example of the classification, comparing it with the manual (ground truth)
and with that obtained by pooling the four regions together. The superiority of the
Methods Local nature of this classification procedure Symmetry of the vessel network proposed method in this image is evident.

¾Retinal images have been acquired with a fundus camera, centered on the fovea
and with a 45° or 50° field of view.
¾The films digitized with a color depth of 24 bits and a resolution of 1360 dpi. Partitioning of the retina into regions:

¾Image preproccesing to compensate for intra-image inhomogeneity [6], (Fig. 3) ¾Similar number of veins and arteries
¾Center and diameter of the optic disk were manually set. ¾The two types of vessels have significant local differences in features
¾Automatically extracted vessel segments by a sparse tracking algorithm [5] ¾Only the major vessels in each retina regions are considered for the subsequent Figure 7a Proposed classifcation: only
a minor vessel is misclassified
Figure 7b Manual classifcation Figure 7c Classification pooling the
four region (global calssification): 3
classification. major vessels are misclassified

Acknowledgements
Vessel set 2 Vessel set 1 This work was partly supported by a research grant from Nidek Technologies, Italy

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Vessel set 3 Vessel set 4
[5] M. Foracchia et al., CAFIA 2001, 15, 2001
Figure 3 Image appearance as aquired (left panel) and after luminosity and contrast inhomogeneity correction Figure 5 Concentric zone about the optic disk and its subdivision into four regions (left panel), and selected vessels inside these [6] E. Grisan et al., Eur. J. Opth., 13, 228-229, 2003
regions (right panel)