Touchless wound measurement, wound volume measurement, and other wound measurement

Abstract

With the inventive technology, wound measurement is performed, but without the patient wound, or the skin near the patient wound, needing to have an object physically placed thereon. The patient wound and patient skin near the wound are spared contact with a ruler, marker, grid, and spared the wound and area near the wound being directly physically worked-on.

1 - 15 . (canceled) 
     
     
         16 . A method of modeling a wound of a patient, comprising
 scanning the wound with a 3D camera;   manipulating the 3D camera around a center of the wound during the scanning step; and   producing a 3D model of the wound from imaging data of the 3D camera, the 3D model being displayed or displayable on a screen and manipulatable on the screen to show a back or underside of the wound.   
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the wound is of a human patient. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the wound is of a veterinary patient. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the scanning step is performed without the 3D camera coming into physical contact with the patient. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the wound is a dermal wound. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the producing step comprises substeps of
 producing a depth image from the imaging data of the 3D camera;   detecting a wound from the depth image, including
 producing a preliminary wound boundary formed of pixels, 
 producing a final wound boundary from the preliminary wound boundary, including, for each pixel in the preliminary wound boundary,
 searching for a maximum value of a directional second derivative of the depth image along a direction orthogonal to the preliminary wound boundary, and 
 setting a pixel of the final wound boundary to coordinates corresponding with the maximum value, subject to a size control function to avoid breaking continuity of the final wound boundary.