Hard exudate detection using Linear Brightness method

Abstract

Diabetic Retinopathy is a major disorder caused in diabetic patients which affects the patient's eye, that, when left untreated could lead to permanent blindness. Detecting Hard exudates help the Ophthalmologist to diagnose the severity of the patient's condition and in turn help in better medication. Irregularly illuminated Fundus images are of great concern as they hinder the process of detecting the hard exudates. Existing Contrast adjustment methods not only increase the contrast of the irregularities of the fundus images, but also make it hard to distinguishing between hard exudates from noise created due to irregularities of illumination. This paper presents a novel method that adjusts the contrast of the image linearly, which in turn, helps detect the hard exudates.