Contrast enhancement of dental lesions by light source optimisation

Abstract

Dental lesions such as calculus and initial caries can be challenging to distinguish in RGB colour images due to a poor contrast. The visibility of dental lesions can be improved by using spectrally optimised light sources. In this paper, the optimal spectral shapes of illuminants for the visibility enhancement of various lesions are determined. These optimal spectral shapes are determined computationally by using spectral images captured from extracted human teeth, and numerical optimisation.