Redotopography apparatus and method using moire fringe analysis to measure foot shapes
First Claim
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1. A pedotopography apparatus comprising:
- means for producing a moire fringe pattern representative of the topography of the underside of a foot to be analyzed;
said fringe pattern being formed between the line grading and the line grating shadow on the underside of the foot;
image capture means for capturing and storing an image of the moire fringe pattern in an image storage buffer;
image processing means for enhancing edges in the captured image;
image analyzing means operatively connected to the image capture means for analyzing the image of the moire fringe pattern to locate at least two points of interest on the foot; and
computing means for calculating information corresponding to the distance between the two points.
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Abstract
A pedotopography apparatus which measures the shape of a foot by producing a moire fringe pattern representative of the underside of the foot, capturing and storing an image of the moire fringe pattern in an image storage buffer, analyzing the image to locate at least two points of interest on the foot and computing information corresponding to the distance between the two points. In the preferred embodiment the captured image is processed by Sobel convolution to enhance edges in the image. Both an apparatus and a method of processing are disclosed.
71 Citations
28 Claims
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1. A pedotopography apparatus comprising:
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means for producing a moire fringe pattern representative of the topography of the underside of a foot to be analyzed; said fringe pattern being formed between the line grading and the line grating shadow on the underside of the foot; image capture means for capturing and storing an image of the moire fringe pattern in an image storage buffer; image processing means for enhancing edges in the captured image; image analyzing means operatively connected to the image capture means for analyzing the image of the moire fringe pattern to locate at least two points of interest on the foot; and computing means for calculating information corresponding to the distance between the two points. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. A pedotopography apparatus comprising:
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a line grating; a light source positioned to illuminate the underside of a foot from a first direction through the line grating to form a line grading shadow on the underside of the foot; a camera positioned to view the underside of the foot from a second direction; image capture means for capturing and storing a first image of the foot from the camera; image processing means for processing the first image with an edge-enhancement algorithm to produce a second image; image analysis means which analyzes the second image of the foot to approximately identify the location of at least two points on the foot and then analyzes the first image, in the vicinity of the approximate positions to identify accurate positions for the two points; and computing means for calculating information corresponding to the distance between the two points. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26)
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27. A method for measuring the shape of a foot comprising:
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(a) producing a moire fringe pattern representative of the topography of the underside of a foot to be analyzed between the line grating and the shadow of the line grating; (b) capturing and storing a first image of the moire fringe pattern; (c) processing the first image to enhance edges thereby forming a second image; (d) analyzing the second image to locate at least two points of interest on the foot; and (e) computing information corresponding to the distance between the two points of interest. - View Dependent Claims (28)
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Specification