Volume estimation of skin ulcers: Can cameras be as accurate as laser scanners?

Abstract

Cavity volume is an important clinical index for the assessment of the healing process and effectiveness of treatment applied on chronic ulcers. Recently, 3D scanners have proven to effectively track ulcer’s volume evolution. However, photogrammetry presents itself as a low cost and portable alternative. We conducted an inter-laboratory comparative study between photogrammetric and 3D scanner-based volume estimation of small skin ulcers. A total of 20 Cutaneous Leishmaniasis ulcers’ virtual models were generated using a commercial laser scanner and a full-HD portable camera. The reconstruction from videos was performed using comercial and open-source software (i.e., Agisoft Photoscan and VisualSFM). The results revealed similar performance with a median deviation of 16.18% and 21.10% (compared to 3DScan-based volume estimation) using VisualSFM and PhotoScan respectively. In addition, both methods proved similar efficiency in the assessment of healing ulcers when compared to 3D-scanner.