Development of New Image Analysis Software for the Skin Pore Shape Obtained by Video Microscope

Abstract

Conspicuous facial pores are a skin problem. We focused on facial pores and developed software which can analyze the shape of pores. The images taken by video microscope have uneven brightness caused by inside light sources. First of all, we developed a processing method to obtain an image suited for analysis, by removing unevenness in brightness and noises such as hairs. Next, skin pores were extracted from the images obtained by the newly developed image analysis software. Subsequently the shape, the direction of major axis, and the area of each pore were calculated by an approximate ellipse drawing. Finally, we showed a scatter diagram to display the facial pore characteristics.