A Study on Automatic Segmentation of Optic Disc in Retinal Fundus Images

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is one of the main causes of vision loss in the world among patients suffering from diabetes. DR is a chronic eye disease, which can be controlled by regular checkup & treatment. If left untreated, loss of vision occurs gradually and become blind. The detection and diagnosis of DR is important. DR is characterized by its features like, micro aneurysms (MAs), hemorrhages, hard exudates, soft exudates and cotton wool sports. The presence of exudates is the distinguished sign of non-proliferative DR. For successful detection of exudates, it is necessary to localize the optic disc (OD) in the retinal image under study as a result, it appears in a similar bright pattern, color and contrast as exudates appear. In this paper, we highlight the various techniques used for segmentation of OD and optic cup used by different authors performing experiments on standard and local database of fundus images. Keywords— Diabetic Retinopathy, Optic Disc, Microaneurysms, Hemorrhages, Exudates, Segmentation, Fundus Image.