This paper describes an automated 3-D surface recovery algorithm for consistent and quantitative evaluation of the deformation in the ONH (optic nerve head). Additional measures, such as the changes in the volume of the cup and the disc as an improvement to the traditional cup to disc ratios, can thus be developed for longitudinal follow-up study of a patient. We propose an automated computerized technique for stereo pair registration and surface visualization of the ONH. Power cepstrum and zero mean cross correlation are embedded in the registration and a 3-D surface recovery technique is proposed. Preprocessing, as well as an overall registration, is performed upon stereo pairs. Then a coarse to fine feature matching strategy is used to reduce the ambiguity in finding the conjugate pair of the same point within the constraints of the epipolar plane. A cubic B-spline interpolation smooths the representation of the ONH obtained, while superimposition of features such as blood vessels is added. Studies show high correlation between traditional cup/disc measures derived from manual segmentation by ophthalmologists and computer generated cup/disc volume ratio. Such longitudinal studies over a large population of glaucoma patients are currently in progress for validation of the surface recovery algorithm.

Date Published: 9 May 2002
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 4684, Medical Imaging 2002: Image Processing, (9 May 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.467043

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4684:
Medical Imaging 2002: Image Processing
Milan Sonka; J. Michael Fitzpatrick, Editor(s)