Autonomous Stabilization of Retinal Videos for Streamlining Assessment of Spontaneous Venous Pulsations
This work addresses a domain-specific problem for eye health professionals by enabling more reliable SVP assessment with mobile devices, though it is incremental as it builds on existing imaging technology with a novel stabilization approach.
The paper tackled the problem of poor quality in smartphone-based retinal videos, which obstructs observation of Spontaneous Venous Pulsations (SVPs), by developing an automated stabilization method that localizes the optic disc region and removes noise and jitter, resulting in stabilized videos that facilitate SVP observation as supported by subjective and objective evaluations.
Spontaneous retinal Venous Pulsations (SVP) are rhythmic changes in the caliber of the central retinal vein and are observed in the optic disc region (ODR) of the retina. Its absence is a critical indicator of various ocular or neurological abnormalities. Recent advances in imaging technology have enabled the development of portable smartphone-based devices for observing the retina and assessment of SVPs. However, the quality of smartphone-based retinal videos is often poor due to noise and image jitting, which in return, can severely obstruct the observation of SVPs. In this work, we developed a fully automated retinal video stabilization method that enables the examination of SVPs captured by various mobile devices. Specifically, we first propose an ODR Spatio-Temporal Localization (ODR-STL) module to localize visible ODR and remove noisy and jittering frames. Then, we introduce a Noise-Aware Template Matching (NATM) module to stabilize high-quality video segments at a fixed position in the field of view. After the processing, the SVPs can be easily observed in the stabilized videos, significantly facilitating user observations. Furthermore, our method is cost-effective and has been tested in both subjective and objective evaluations. Both of the evaluations support its effectiveness in facilitating the observation of SVPs. This can improve the timely diagnosis and treatment of associated diseases, making it a valuable tool for eye health professionals.