How to remove arteries from the heart tissue image?

I've got a heart tissue image, I want to remove arteries from the image, and also calculate the percentage of the arteries. Does anyone have a good idea for this problem? Can I do it by removing the pixels?

[Image Analyst]

Please indicate which regions are the arteries. Are they the small, white, roundish blobs? What is "percentage of arteries"? Do you mean the "area fraction"?

[nana]

Arteries are the red pixels. (the white are holes) I can calculate the percentage by dividing the area of arteries to total area. But the problem is separating arteries from the tissue! Can i remove it with intensity, size and shape parameters?!

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

See attached m-file.

[nana]

Arteries are the red pixels. (the white are holes) I can calculate the percentage by dividing the area of arteries to total area. But the problem is separating arteries from the tissue! Can i remove it with intensity, size and shape parameters?!

[nana]

You obtained the holes (thanks, it was my second problem!). could you please give me the codes?

[Image Analyst]

The code is below the image I posted - you must have overlooked it. It's called testGrayImage.m.

You can get the red stuff by doing color segmentation. See my File Exchange for demos, or check out the Color Thresholder App on the APPS tab on the MATLAB tool ribbon.