Vampire: Vessel assessment and measurement platform for images of the retina

We describe VAMPIRE, a software application for efficient, semi-automatic quantification of retinal vessel properties with large collections of fundus camera images. VAMPIRE is also an international collaborative project of four image processing groups and five clinical centers. VAMPIRE is an easy-to-use tool for clinical researchers allowing efficient quantification of features of the retinal vasculature with large sets of images (hundreds or thousands). Most of the processing is performed automatically before user intervention, which is kept at a minimum. The VAMPIRE interface provides easy-to-understand visual feedback of the features extracted and a set of tools that allows the user to easily identify, locate, and correct wrong measurements. No prior usage experience of image processing algorithms is assumed or required and the software is straightforward to use by those who are not computer literate.