A Vision-Based Technique for Objective Assessment of Burn Scars

—In this paper a method for the objective assessment of burn scars is proposed. The quantitative measures developed in this research provide an objective way to calculate elastic properties of burn scars relative to the surrounding areas. The approach combines range data and the mechanics and motion dynamics of human tissues. Active contours are employed to locate regions of interest and to find displacements of feature points using automatically established correspondences. Changes in strain distribution over time are evaluated. Given images at two time instances and their corresponding features, the finite element method is used to synthesize strain distributions of the underlying tissues. This results in a physically based framework for motion and strain analysis. Relative elasticity of the burn scar is then recovered using iterative descent search for the best nonlinear finite element model that approximates stretching behavior of the region containing the burn scar. The resul...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 1998
• Where: TMI
• Authors: Leonid V. Tsap, Dmitry B. Goldgof, Sudeep Sarkar, Pauline S. Powers
• Keywords: Burn Scar, SCAR, TMI 1998, finite Element Method