Estimation of the fibre-composition of verhoff-stained fascia using colour-image processing

This paper reports the results of our work on assessing the composition of abdominal fascia based on microscopic images of specimen stained by Verhoff's method, using colour-image processing. Verhoff'1s method of staining results in collagen fibres appearing red, and elastic fibres and speckle-like artefacts appearing black (elastic fibres being darker), in a yellowish background. The basic idea involves segmenting the red-coloured collagen first, followed by segmenting the black elastic fibres. We use the YIQ colour model for the purpose. Collagen is extracted by thresholding a contrast-enhanced version of the I-image, and elastic fibres are extracted by thresholding the Y-image based on an empirically estimated threshold-value. Results of experiments on real microscopic images are encouraging.