Detection of the temporal arcade in fundus images of the retina using the Hough transform.

Quantitative analysis of the vascular architecture of the retina can help in monitoring the effects of retinopathy on the visual system. Retinopathy affects the blood vessels in the retina through modification of the shape, width, tortuosity, and the angle of insertion of the temporal arcade. Monitoring the openness of the temporal arcade and changes with treatment can facilitate improved diagnosis and optimized treatment. We propose methods for the detection and parametric modeling of the temporal arcade, including gradient operators and Gabor functions to detect retinal vessels, and the Hough transform to detect parabolic forms. Results obtained with 40 images of the retina indicate accurate to acceptable results for 24 images and partial fits of the parabolic models for 11 images.