Developmental Thermography[II] : Panoramic Thermography

Abstract

The most basic process for the pattern analysis of medical thermography is accurate comparison of the temperature distributions on various parts of a body surface. However, since conventional infrared thermography converts the three-dimensional temperature distributions into a two-dimensional plane image viewed along the optical axis of a thermocamera, the linearity of thermograms thus obtained do not creespond to the real image of the body surface and geometrical deformation cannot be avoided. In practice several thermograms of various sides of a subject must often be taken, but the thermograms thus obtained are not continuous to the ends each frame, "Panoramic thermography", however, which has been developed by the author, is a new thermographic method which displays the three-dimensional temperature distributions of a body surface as a continuous developmental pattern for all target area of a body, with either the thermocamera or the subject rotating on the subject's center axis. The temperature distributions on all or any part of a body surface can be observed continuously and three-dimensionally. Panoramic thermography is a epoch-making thermographic technique and is expected to have many unique uses in a wide range of medical applicaitons.