PHYSIOLOGIC DATA ACQUISITION AND ANALYSIS

• US 20140378810A1
• Filed: 05/13/2014
• Published: 12/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Original Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Inventors: Davis, Bruce L., Rodriguez, Tony F., Reed, Alastair M., Stach, John, Rhoads, Geoffrey B., Conwell, William Y., Sharma, Ravi K., Thagadur Shivappa, Shankar, Gibson, Richard F.
• Application Number:
  US14/276,578
• Publication Number:
  US 20140378810A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/407
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2576/02 specially adapted for a particular organ or body part
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0075 by spectroscopy, i.e. measuring spectra, e.g. Raman spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy A61B5/0071 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0077 Devices for viewing the surface of the body, e.g. camera, magnifying lens
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1032 Determining colour for diagnostic purposes measuring colour in general G01J3/46
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1034 by means of colour cards
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/441 Skin evaluation, e.g. for skin disorder diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/444 Evaluating skin marks, e.g. mole, nevi, tumour, scar
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/445 Evaluating skin irritation or skin trauma, e.g. rash, eczema, wound, bed sore
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4806 Sleep evaluation A61B5/4821 takes precedence; devices for inducing sleep A61M21/02
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6898 Portable consumer electronic devices, e.g. music players, telephones, tablet computers
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7246 using correlation, e.g. template matching or determination of similarity
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7278 Artificial waveform generation or derivation, e.g. synthesising signals from measured signals A61B5/327 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7282 Event detection, e.g. detecting unique waveforms indicative of a medical condition A61B5/4094, A61B5/4818, A61B5/349, A61B5/0823 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7425 Displaying combinations of multiple images regardless of image source, e.g. displaying a reference anatomical image with a live image geometric transforms for image registration G06T3/14; enhancement using image fusion G06T5/50; algorithms for registration of images G06T7/30
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/743 Displaying an image simultaneously with additional graphical information, e.g. symbols, charts, function plots
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7485 Automatic selection of region of interest
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30088 Skin; Dermal
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/40 using histogram techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 : Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/018 : Audio watermarking, i.e. embedding inaudible data in the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 : for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/40 : for processing medical images, e.g. editing
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 : for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 : for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 : for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16Z 99/00 : Subject matter not provided for in other main groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 50/30 : Against vector-borne diseases, e.g. mosquito-borne, fly-borne, tick-borne or waterborne diseases whose impact is exacerbated by climate change
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 90/10 : Information and communication technologies [ICT] supporting adaptation to climate change, e.g. for weather forecasting or climate simulation

Abstract

The availability of high quality imagers on smartphones and other portable devices facilitates creation of a large, crowd-sourced, image reference library that depicts skin rashes and other dermatological conditions. Some of the images are uploaded with, or later annotated with, associated diagnoses or other information (e.g., “this rash went away when I stopped drinking milk”). A user uploads a new image of an unknown skin condition to the library. Image analysis techniques are employed to identify salient similarities between features of the uploaded image, and features of images in this reference library. Given the large dataset, statistically relevant correlations emerge that identify to the user certain diagnoses that may be considered, other diagnoses that may likely be ruled-out, and/or anecdotal information about similar skin conditions from other users. Similar arrangements can employ audio and/or other physiologically-derived signals. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

Claims

1-44. -44. (canceled)

45. An apparatus comprising:

one or more side walls defining a booth;

a plurality of cameras disposed along the one or more side walls, directed toward an interior of the booth;

an image processor connected to said cameras;

a plurality of light sources disposed along the one or more side walls, directed toward the interior of the booth; and

driving electronics for the light sources;

wherein;

the light sources comprise plural lighting elements having different spectral characteristics;

the driving electronics cause different of the lighting elements to illuminate at different times, so that the cameras can capture imagery under plural different spectral lighting conditions; and

the image processor is adapted to produce spectricity measurements based on imagery from the cameras.

59. The apparatus of claim 45 in which:

at least one of said cameras includes a color filter arrangement comprising elements of three different filter colors, to yield frames of imagery having three different color channels;

the light sources comprise lighting elements having N different illumination spectra; and

the image processor is adapted to produce spectricity measurements in more than N different spectral bands, due to coupling between said N different illumination spectra, and plural of said different color channels.

60. The apparatus of claim 59 wherein said spectral bands include at least two bands of different spectral widths.

46. A method comprising:

capturing plural frames of skin imagery from a mammalian body, using a smartphone;

deriving information from the captured imagery, and comparing the derived information with reference information; and

reporting results of said comparing.

47. The method of claim 46 in which said frames are captured by a lay-person rather than a physician, and the reference information is based on imagery previously captured by lay-persons, and also is based on imagery previously-captured by physicians.

49. The method of claim 46 in which one of said captured frames includes a known object distinct from skin, the method further includes determining a camera pose relative to the skin based on apparent geometrical distortion of said object in the captured frame.

50. The method of claim 46 in which the mammalian body is an animal body, rather than a human body.

51. The method of claim 46 in which said deriving is performed using a representation of the captured skin imagery in a LAB color space.

48. (canceled)

52-58. -58. (canceled)