Jerman Enhancement Filter

Enhancement of Vessel/tube and blob/sphere like structures in 2D/3D images using hessian eigenvalues

Available on GitHub.
Jerman's 3D and 2D Hessian based tubular (vessel/vesselness) and spherical (blob/blobness) enhancement filters.
The MATLAB code is the implementation of the next two journal publications:

- T. Jerman, F. Pernus, B. Likar, Z. Spiclin, "Enhancement of Vascular Structures in 3D and 2D Angiographic Images", IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 35(9), p. 2107-2118 (2016), doi={https://doi.org/10.1109/TMI.2016.2550102}

- T. Jerman, F. Pernus, B. Likar, Z. Spiclin, "Blob Enhancement and Visualization for Improved Intracranial Aneurysm Detection", IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 22(6), p. 1705-1717 (2016), doi={https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2015.2446493}

and a conference paper (please refer to journal publication [1] for more details):

- T. Jerman, F. Pernus, B. Likar, Z. Spiclin, "Beyond Frangi: an improved multiscale vesselness filter", Proc. SPIE 9413, Medical Imaging 2015: Image Processing, 94132A (2015), doi={https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2081147}

The code is based on Dirk-Jan Kroon's implementation of Frangi's vesselness filter. (www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/24409-hessian-based-frangi-vesselness-filter)

Tips:

- Make sure that the objects of interest have the highest (if bright compared to the background) or lowest (if dark compared to background) intensities in the image/volume. Scale/normalize the images appropriately.

- The 3D method contains a c-code file that needs to be compiled with "mex eig3volume.c". More info: www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/24409-hessian-based-frangi-vesselness-filter

- Threshold the filter response to remove any remaining enhanced noise

Content:

- 2D enhancement of vessel/tube-like structures:

- vesselness2D.m - main function
- example_vesselness2D.m - filter applied on a 2D retinal vasculature
- fundus2D.png - image for the example

- 3D enhancement of vessel/tube-like structures:

- vesselness3D.m - main function
- eig3volume.c - fast computation of eigenvalues
- example_vesselness3D.m - filter applied on a 3D cerebral vasculature
- volume.mat - volume for the example

- 3D enhancement of blob/sphere-like structures:

- blobness3D.m - main function
- eig3volume.c - (as above)
- example_blobness3D.m - aneurysm enhancement in a 3D cerebral vasculature
- volume.mat - (as above)