A bio-inspired method for segmenting the optic disc and macula in retinal images

Abstract

In this paper, Ant Colony System (ACS) based segmentation method is proposed and its features are used for segmenting the optic disc and macula in the retinal images. The suggested ACS-based segmentation approach employs intensity (gray-level) and colour as distinct characteristics to localise and segment the optic disc and macula in the retinal images. The evaluation and assessment of the performance of this nature-inspired approach for automatically separating blood vessels in retinal images by computer on standard retinal image databases revealed that it obtained the best separation of pixels that only belong to a blood vessel above all previous findings. The degree of accuracy of the proposed methodology approaches the best levels of accuracy achieved by techniques using supervised pixel classification algorithms.