System and methods for analyzing tooth shades
First Claim
1. A method for associating a tooth shade relative to a tooth, comprising:
- providing a digital image of the tooth, the digital image having pixels;
processing the digital image to generate a REAL IMAGE formed of pseudo-pixels, at least one of said pseudo-pixels comprising two or more pixels of the digital image; and
correlating the generated REAL IMAGE with two or more REFERENCE IMAGES representing tooth shades to determine which tooth shade most closely matches visual characteristics of the tooth.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A digital camera connects to a tooth shade analyzer subsystem, e.g., a digital video processor, and a color display monitor for the electronic determination of the color of patient'"'"'s teeth. Preliminarily, the camera captures series of digital color images of tooth shades corresponding to reference shade guides, and electronically compares the reference shades to an image of the patient'"'"'s tooth. In a preferred embodiment the comparison is done over a set of pseudo-pixels, each corresponding to a group of pixels in an high-resolution camera. Once a match is found, it is communicated to a user of the system. In a specific embodiment the camera is equipped with a sleeve and illumination subsystems that help reduce the variations in the color of digital images due to external factors.
72 Citations
32 Claims
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1. A method for associating a tooth shade relative to a tooth, comprising:
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providing a digital image of the tooth, the digital image having pixels;
processing the digital image to generate a REAL IMAGE formed of pseudo-pixels, at least one of said pseudo-pixels comprising two or more pixels of the digital image; and
correlating the generated REAL IMAGE with two or more REFERENCE IMAGES representing tooth shades to determine which tooth shade most closely matches visual characteristics of the tooth. - 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)
where Rx,q, Gx,q and Bx,q denote the R,G and B components for the q-th pseudo-pixel of the x-th tooth shade, and Ri,q Gi,q and Bi,q are the corresponding components of the REAL image, and Pcountx, corresponds to the number of common pseudo-pixels between the REAL IMAGE and the REFERENCE IMAGE for the x-th tooth shade.
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21. The method of claim 20 wherein Pcountx=1.
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22. The method of claim 20 wherein the Pcountx number is different for at least two separate tooth shades.
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23. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of providing a digital image of the tooth comprises capturing the image using a digital camera.
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24. A method for determining color characteristics a patient'"'"'s tooth, comprising:
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providing a digital image of the tooth, the digital image having pixels;
dividing the digital image into segments, each segment forming a pseudo-pixel comprising one or more pixels of the digital image;
computing color characteristics of each pseudo-pixel based on the corresponding one or more pixels of the original image; and
storing the computed color characteristics in a computer memory. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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31. A system for associating a tooth shade relative to a tooth, comprising:
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a digital camera for capturing digital images of human teeth, the digital images having pixels;
a processor for converting digital images captured by the camera to REAL IMAGES formed of pseudo-pixels, at least one of said pseudo-pixels comprising two or more pixels of the digital image; and
means for correlating the generated REAL IMAGE with two or more REFERENCE IMAGES representing tooth shades to determine which tooth shade most closely matches visual characteristics of the tooth. - View Dependent Claims (32)
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Specification