A Novel Coherence Diffusion Method for Vessel Enhancement

In this paper, a novel coherence diffusion method for vessel enhancement is proposed. A new structure tensor integrating the second-order directional derivative information is designed, which can analyze the complex weak and ridge edges accurately. By combining the proposed tensor with the classical one as complementary descriptor, this method can also detect the strong edges simultaneously. Moreover, AOS strategy is used to implement the numerical calculation, which is much faster than usual approach. Through comparing the experimental results, it is demonstrated that the new diffusion method is outstanding in preserving the strong and weak edges of vessel precisely while removing noises.