17.09.2019
Steger, C. (1998). An unbiased detector of curvilinear structures. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 20(2), 113–125. doi:10.1109/34.659930
The paper describes a method to extract lines and their widths. The method proposed has some characteristics, that make it extremely useful for the detection of filament like structures in biological images.
- The correct centre-line is found even when the line-profiles are asymmetric
- The width of the filament is detected
- Crossing filaments do not disturb the detection since the environment is taken into consideration
- The parameters are meaningful: max. line width, min. contrast, ...
- Yields results with sub-pixel resolution
An ImageJ-plugin named Ridge Detection implementing the method has been written by Thorsten Wagner and Mark Hiner.
It seems to work well for young roots up to roots of intermediate complexity. Like in this image:
Volker Bäcker