Jean-Christophe Nebel

3D Thermography Duration: 2002-2004

Project description

Thermography is the use of an infrared imaging and measurement camera to "see" and "measure " thermal energy emitted from an object. Unlike visible light, in the infrared world, everything with a temperature above absolute zero emits heat. Infrared thermography cameras produce images of invisible infrared or "heat" radiation and provide precise non-contact temperature measurement capabilities. It has been used for decades for military and industrial applications. And medical thermograms - which represent the skin surface temperatures - are more and more used in particular for the detection of inflammations. One limitation of this technique, which has so far prevented its widespread used for medical applications, is the difficulty of getting quantitative values from the thermograms. The "heat" measured by an infrared camera depends on the distance and the angle between the camera and the object of interest. Therefore observations depend on the position of the observer and comparisons between thermograms can only be done qualitatively. Since the 3D MATIC Research laboratory has developed techniques for the generation of 3D surface models of the human body, the combination of these techniques with a thermo camera allows the generation of 3D thermograms. Using the information of these 3D thermograms, we should be able to generate standardised thermograms, which could be used for quantitative studies. The aim of the project is the generation of standardised thermograms and the development of an environment allowing the comparison between these thermograms.

• Detection of inflammatory lameness in the superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT) in the forelimbs of horses

  

  

  (a,b,c) Thermographs of a horse with a tendon injury, (d,e) 3D scan of a horse leg model

• 3D thermography

  

  

  3D scan with photographic and thermal overlays

Research interest keywords

medical applications, 3D scanners, thermography  

Publications

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2004

• 3D thermography imaging standardization technique for inflammation diagnosis, X. Ju, J.-C. Nebel and J. P. Siebert, Photonics Asia 2004, Proceedings of SPIE, Vol. 5640-46, 8-12 November 2004, Beijing, China [PDF]

2003

• 3D Thermography for the quantification of heat generation resulting from inflammation, P. Aksenov, I. Clark, D. Grant, A. Inman, L. Vartikovski and J.-C. Nebel, Proc. 8th 3D Modelling symposium, Paris, France, 2003 [PDF]