Method and system for analyzing lip conditions using digital images

• US 20100316296A1
• Filed: 06/13/2009
• Published: 12/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Elleen Flores, Rajeshwar Chhibber, Smita Chawla, Victoria Tu
• Original Assignee: BrighTex Bio-Photonics LLC
• Inventors: Chawla, Smita, Flores, Elleen, Tu, Victoria, Chhibber, Rajeshwar
• Granted Patent: US 8,861,863 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/190
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30088 Skin; Dermal
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30096 Tumor; Lesion
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30201 Face
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/194 involving foreground-background segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/90 Determination of colour characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/143 Sensing or illuminating at different wavelengths
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/171 Local features and components; Facial parts eye characteristics G06V40/18; Occluding parts, e.g. glasses; Geometrical relationships
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for analyzing lip conditions using digital images. The method comprises acquiring a white-light image and an ultraviolet (“UV”) image of the lips of a subject, each of the white-light and UV images including a plurality of pixels and each pixel in the UV image corresponding to a respective pixel in the white-light image. The method further comprises identifying lip-pixels in the white-light and UV images, and obtaining results associated with at least one lip condition using information in the lip pixels in the first white light and UV images.

Claims

1. A method for analyzing lip conditions associated with a subject, comprising:

acquiring a first white-light image and a first UV image of the lips of a subject, each of the first white-light and UV images include a plurality of pixels, each pixel in the first UV image corresponding to a respective pixel in the first white-light image;

examining properties of each pixel in at least the first white-light image to identify lip-pixels in the first white-light and UV images; and

obtaining results associated with at least one lip condition using information in the lip-pixels in at least one of the first white-light and UV images.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of providing a computing device, and after said acquiring step, sending the first white-light image and the first UV image to the computing device for analysis;

and wherein said examining step and said obtaining step are performed at the computing device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of acquiring comprises:

applying UV light to the lips of the subject to acquire the first UV image; and

applying white light to the lips of the subject to acquire the first white-light image.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of providing a light-absorbing clock and placing the light-absorbing cloak to cover a part of the subject before acquiring the first UV image.

5. The method of claim 1, further Comprising the step of providing an image sensor and orienting the image sensor to adjust an aspect ratio of each of the first white-light and UV images.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a lip mask having a plurality of elements each corresponding to a respective pixel in the first white-light image and having been assigned a value;

wherein the step of identifying comprises;

for each pixel in the first white-light or UV image, determining if the pixel is a lip pixel by looking up the value in a corresponding element in the lip map.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the lip mask comprises a region of the skin peripheral to the subject'"'"'s lips.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein generating the lip mask comprises:

converting the first white-light image into at least one second white-light image of at least one second color space, each pixel in the at least one second white-light image corresponding to a respective pixel in the first white-light image and to a respective element in the lip mask; and

for each element in the lip-mask;

determining if pixel properties associated with the corresponding pixel in each of the white-light images satisfy predefined criteria for lip pixels associated with a respective color space; and

assigning one of first and second values to the element.

9. The method of claim 8, further providing a coordinate reference, and carrying out the step of assigning one of the first and second values by consulting the coordinate reference.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of identifying comprises, for each pixel in the first white light image:

determining if pixel values associated therewith satisfy a first set of predefined criteria for lip pixels.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first white-light image is of a first color space, and the step of identifying further comprises:

converting the first white-light image into at least one second white-light image of at least one second color space; and

for each of the at least one second image;

determining if pixel values associated with each of a plurality of pixels satisfy a respective set of predefined criteria for lip pixels.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of identifying further comprises providing a coordinate reference and consulting said coordinate reference.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one lip condition is selected from a group consisting of:

surface area, color, fine lines, lip wrinkling, color contrast, line roughness, and color variation, the lip wrinkling being defined by count, length, width, and severity of the wrinkles.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the severity of the lip wrinkles is categorized into a plurality of groups with reference to a wrinkle count and the wrinkle length.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying results associated with at least one selected skin condition.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the step of displaying comprises displaying both current and prior results associated with at least one selected skin condition for the subject for comparison.

17. A computer readable medium storing therein program instructions for execution on a digital processor that when executed by the digital processor cause the digital processor to perform a method for analyzing lip conditions associated with a subject, the program instructions comprising:

instructions for acquiring a first white-light image and a first UV image of the subject, each pixel in the first UV image corresponding to a respective pixel in the first white-light image;

instructions for identifying, on a pixel by pixel basis, skin-pixels in the first white-light and UV images; and

instructions for obtaining results associated with at least one skin condition using information in the skin pixels in the first white light and UV images.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions for acquiring comprise instructions for acquiring the first white-light and UV images from the digital processor.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions for identifying comprise:

instructions for generating a lip map that maps skin pixels in the first white-light and UV image.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions for identifying comprise:

instructions for determining, for each pixel in the first white-light image, if the pixel is a skin pixel by referencing a lip map.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions for obtaining comprise:

instructions for computing a color value and an intensity value associated with each of the lip pixels in the first UV image; and

instructions for determining, for each skin pixel in the first UV image, if the color and intensity values fall within predetermined ranges for at least one lip condition.

22. A computer system including the computer readable medium storing therein program instructions for execution on a processor that when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform a method for analyzing lip conditions associated with a subject, the program instructions comprising:

instructions for acquiring a first white-light image and a first UV image of the subject, each pixel in the first UV image corresponding to a respective pixel in the first white-light image;

instructions for identifying, on a pixel by pixel basis, skin-pixels in the first white-light and UV images; and

instructions for obtaining results associated with at least one skin condition using information in the skin pixels in the first white light and UV images.

24. The system of claim 22, wherein the image acquisition device has a sensor that can be rotated to adjust an aspect ratio of the white-light or UV image according control signals from the computer system.

25. The system of claim 22, wherein the image acquisition device comprises:

a sensor;

an optical assembly configured to form images of the subject on the sensor; and

a plurality of flash light sources attached thereto, including two flash light sources on two sides of the optical assembly, and one on top of the optical assembly, at least a portion of the flash light sources have UV transmission filters installed thereon, and at least a portion of the flash light sources have infrared absorption filters installed thereon.

23. A system for analyzing lip conditions associated with a subject, comprising:

an image acquisition device configured to acquire a first white-light image and a first UV image of the subject, each of the first white-light and UV images having a plurality of pixels, each pixel in the first UV image corresponding to a respective pixel in the first white-light image;

a computer system configured to identify, on a pixel by pixel basis, skin-pixels in the first white-light and UV images, and to obtain results associated with at least one lip condition using information in the skin pixels in the first white light and UV images.