How to asses, visualize and compare the anisotropy of linear structures reconstructed from optical sections-A study based on histopathological quantification of human brain microvessels

► We present p(chi-square) method for evaluating anisotropy of linear systems. ► We compared this novel method with ellipsoidal and fractional anisotropy. ► We determined preferential directions and anisotropy of brain blood microvessels. ► Microvessels in cortex were more anisotropic than in white matter. ► We created open source software (esofspy) to calculate measures of anisotropy.