Quantitative assessment of ulcers volume using 3D surface imaging

Measuring changes in ulcer during treatment can indicate the effectiveness of a treatment regime. Identifying appropriate treatment regime will reduce healing time. Current methods for measuring wound size are subjective and require manual contact with the wound. With the availability of techniques which can provide accurate depth measurement and surface profile, computer programs that can construct solids out of the wounds and quantitatively compute volume are indispensable. The development of volume estimation algorithms from 3D skin surface images to monitor wounds progress throughout treatment is discussed. The performance of midpoint projection and convex hull approximation (Delaunay tetrahedralization) methods, for solid reconstruction and volume computation, is detailed. Results of calculating wound models volume indicate that convex hull reconstruction preceded by surface division outperforms midpoint projection in case of regular boundary models. The error ranged from (0–2.8%) for convex hull reconstruction, while midpoint projection error range was from (0–6.5%).