Real-time guiding and positioning for tongue image

• Main Authors: Rong-Xiu Dang, 鄧榕修
• Other Authors: Kang-Ping Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/61431932660396034951

碩士 === 中原大學 === 電機工程研究所 === 97 === In Chinese medicine, doctors diagnose by 4 methods: Inspection, Listening and Smelling, Inquiring, Palpation. Visual inspection of the tongue is one of the main inspections of the Wang diagnosis. Visual inspection of the tongue in Chinese medicine has a long history. In Chinese medicine, the tongue is treated as a minimized body layout with every part of the tongue corresponding to each organ of the body. This research develops a real-time tongue inspection system based on image processing technologies. The tongue inspection system developed in this research is composed of a webcam and a PC. Thus it is portable and automatic. This tongue inspection system has overcomes several disadvantages traditional tongue inspection systems have such as the need to fix the head, large image capturing equipment, ponderosity, high equipment cost, and difficult operations. This innovative tongue inspection system facilitates the visual inspection of the tongue. This tongue inspection system captures tongue images with a stream webcam. The raw images first go through light-compensation processing, strengthening the contrast of the tongue against surrounding skins. The tongue skin is further analyzed to roughly determine the outlines of the tongue. Meanwhile, the system determines the tongue position by analyzing the tongue’s relative horizontal and vertical positions. Based on the position of the tongue, the system guides the examinee to the optical position and captures the tongue images. At the same time, the system saves the tongue images with clear notification messages displayed on the screen. Finally, the system chooses the tongue images with good image quality for later processing. The system developed in this research quantitatively analyze in real time the tongue diagnosis information a Chinese medical doctor uses, such as tongue color differentiation, the distinguishing, analysis, and processing of integrated tongue inspection information. This tongue inspection system may be a great aide to scientific analysis of the Chinese medicine.