OCCLUDED RED BLOOD CELLS SPLITTING VIA BOUNDARIES ANALYSIS AND LINES DRAWING IN MICROSCOPIC THIN BLOOD SMEAR DIGITAL IMAGES

Abstract

Occluded Red Blood Cells are observed frequently in the thin blood smear digital images. Separating the occluded Red Blood Cells from the single Red Blood Cells and further the splitting of occluded Red Blood Cells into single Red Blood Cells is a challenging job in the computer assisted diagnosis of blood for any disorder in many diseases like Complete Blood Count Test, Anemia, Leukemia and Malaria etc. The mentioned problem is also highly laborious in manual microscopy for the hematologist. Many techniques currently existed for the solution but suffered from both under and over splitting problems when highly complex occlusions of Red Blood Cells occurred. Also the existed techniques are not computationally efficient. In this, paper we address the mentioned problems in realistic, efficient and automated way by considering the boundaries of the occluded Red Blood Cells through convex hulls to divide the boundaries on the basis of distance calculation in a very simple and efficient way split the occlusions according to the number of Red Blood Cells. Further, we draw lines using Digital differential analyzer graphics line drawing algorithm at the two respective end points to give cuts to split the occluded Red Blood Cell. The test results of the proposed technique using standard online data set of thin blood smear digital images (provided by Centers of diseases Control and prevention, USA) are presented in this paper by qualitatively analysis through ground truth with visual inspection.