Spectral Image Enhancement for the Visualization of Dental Lesions

Abstract

Spectral imaging provides an image of a target over a relatively large number of wavelength bands. With the advances in imaging technology, spectral imaging is becoming increasingly popular in different areas of research. However, as spectral images typically contain more than three wavelength bands, visualization of the spectral data is often challenging. Spectral image enhancement is one approach for creating visualizations of spectral data. In spectral image enhancement, weights are applied to the wavelength bands before computing an RGB-presentation. In this paper, a method for automatic determination of optimal spectral band weights for enhanced visualization of dental lesions (caries and calculus) in extracted human teeth is described. Results are promising as the contrast and visibility of lesions was improved in all studied cases.