Exudates detection in fundus image using non-uniform illumination background subtraction

Exudates detection in fundus image using non-uniform illumination background subtraction is proposed in this paper. Non-uniform illumination background that is the major problem of fundus imagge processing is need to be eliminated. Weighted surface fitting is used in fundus image background estimation after image compensation is performed. The unwanted data for fundus image background estimation i.e. optic disk, fovea, blood vessels, and lesions are detected without traditional image segmentation. The estimated background is subtracted from the image and then exudates are detected from the foreground of image using level-set evolution without re-initialization. The experimental results show that the proposed method is robust to non-uniform illumination environment. Averaging sensitivity and positive predictive value are 91.84 % and 92.81 % respectively.