Research on Extraction and Digitization Method of Blood Vessels for TCM Diagnosis

This paper presents 1) algorithms for blood vessels extraction in sclera-conjunctiva images, which can be applied in syndrome differentiation by observing human eyes (named Ocular Diagnostic in Traditional Chinese Medicine), 2) digitization of extracted vessels. First, sclera-conjunctiva region is isolated by optimal threshold segmentation and mathematical operation. Second, scanning and edge detection methods are used to gain the edge of the blood vessels. Moreover, the edge feature parameters are gained, which can be used to reconstruct the blood vessels. Experimental results show that the algorithms can obtain blood vessels information fast and accurately.