A novel framework for retinal vessel segmentation using optimal improved frangi filter and adaptive weighted spatial FCM

Abstract

Medical attention has long been focused on diagnosing diseases through retinal vasculature. However, due to the image intensity inhomogeneity and retinal vessel thickness variability, segmenting the vessels from retinal images is still a tough matter. In this paper, we suggest an optimal improved Frangi-based multi-scale filter for enhancement. The parameters of the Frangi filter are optimised using a modified enhanced leader particle swarm optimization (MELPSO). The enhanced image is segmented using a novel adaptive weighted spatial fuzzy c-means (AWSFCM) clustering technique. The suggested approach is tested on three freely available databases. The results obtained are compared with state-of-the-art procedures. It is observed that the suggested approach outperforms other methods and may serve as an effective approach for retinal vessel segmentation.