Recording, processing, and analysis of digital high-speed sequences in glottography

Abstract

A new high-speed system for recording, processing, and analyzing vocal fold vibrations has been developed. Results obtained with this system are discussed from the technical and the medical points of view. Laryngeal movement can be recorded with a digital high-speed camera, at a maximum speed of about 5 600 frames/s and the sequence can contain as many as 8 192 single frames. Application specific software for adaptive, semiautomatic, motion analysis is used to calculate and plot the glottograms for selected points on each vocal cord. From the data obtained, we can calculate speed, acceleration rates, the fundamental frequency, amplitudes, and perturbation parameters. This approach to laryngeal examination, based on the digital films, motion plots and characteristic statistics, is a practicable method that promotes the possibilities of quantitative and graphic analysis of the moving vocal folds and overcomes the disadvantages of the currently common examination methods.