Tubular curvature filter: pointwise curvature calculation for tubular objects in images

Purpose

Accurate estimation of blood vessel tortuosity from medical images is an extremely important and challenging task. It is particularly relevant in the context of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), where the staging of disease severity and consequent therapeutic approaches are heavily informed by the presence and prominence of vessel tortuosity. Existing methods based on centerline or skeleton curvature fail to capture curvature gradients across a rotating tubular structure, thereby limiting their effectiveness in the case of ROP.