From color to tissue histology: Physics based interpretation of images of pigmented skin lesions
Color is an important sign in the clinical diagnosis of many conditions. In the computer analysis of Medical images color also plays an important role, for example in segmentation and classification. These and similar operations utilize color as one of the image features, but the question “why a particular
color is associated with a particular medical condition” is not frequently asked.
How do the colors that we see on the surface arise? Light emitted by a source interacts with the surface and the interior of an object and through these interactions (mainly absorption and scatter) the spectral composition of light is altered. The changes reflect the structure and optical properties of the materials constituting the object and in this sense the light remitted from the object “encodes” its properties. If this encoding is understood, it should be possible to deduce the structure and composition of the object from its color image.
In this paper we show how the understanding of the image formation process enables us to derive diagnostically important facts about the internal structure and composition of the skin lesions from their color images. This information is then used for diagnosis of pigmented skin lesions to aid the detection of melanoma.
Read the entire paper From Color to Tissue Histology
