Wound model reconstruction from three-dimensional skin surface imaging using the convex hull approximation method

Abstract

Ulcer wound refers to a wound with underlying medical conditions that prevent healing. The ability to measure objectively early therapeutic response is important for wound management. Early therapeutic efficacy is best assessed by measurement of wound depth and volume. This study presents a non-invasive technique for assessing ulcer wound volume from three-dimensional (3D) surface scans. The accuracy of volume computation is dependent on the performance of the solid reconstruction of the wound. However, it is difficult to reconstruct solid models of wounds such as leg ulcers that extend over a large area along leg curvature and when irregularities exist on the skin surrounding the wound. The convex hull approximation preceded by surface division of the wound surface scan is proposed for solid reconstruction of wound models. This approach enables the reconstruction of models for large wounds without being affected by the surrounding irregularities. The performance of the algorithm is compared against reference volumes of wound models developed on AutoCAD. The best results are achieved using convex hull preceded by 20 surface divisions with volume computation error from 0 to 7%. Furthermore, moulds of wounds are developed to compute volumes using invasive and non-invasive methods, their percentage differences are below 8%.

A photometric stereo approach for chronic wound measurement

“…By making a linear or area measurement only, the earlier stages of a healing process may be missed or misrepresented. So an ideal wound measurement should be able to quantify all aspects of the wound with satisfactory accuracy (Hani et al, 2012). Furthermore, the ergonomics and cost of the techniques are also important factors that affect their applicability in practice.…”

Method for automatic railway track surface defect classification and evaluation using a laser‐based 3D model

“…For example, the range of tolerance for a comparison‐based method is difficult to choose due to unstable measuring conditions, and it is also impossible to create a diversity of thresholding techniques covering the defects that have a wide variety of sizes in the real world [9]. The substantial improvement of 3D technologies has pushed their application in many areas such as virtual reality, robot navigation, medical imaging, and architectural restoration of cultural relics [10, 11, 12, 13]. Accordingly, the authors’ previous research explored the feasibility of applying related laser‐based 3D techniques into railway systems for detecting physical surface defects.…”