Vascular tree tracking and bifurcation points detection in retinal images using a hierarchical probabilistic model.

Background And Objective: Retinal vascular tree extraction plays an important role in computer-aided diagnosis and surgical operations. Junction point detection and classification provide useful information about the structure of the vascular network, facilitating objective analysis of retinal diseases.

Methods: In this study, we present a new machine learning algorithm for joint classification and tracking of retinal blood vessels.