Physiologic data acquisition and analysis

Abstract

The availability of high quality imagers on smartphones and other portable devices facilitates creation of a large, crowd-sourced, image reference library that depicts skin rashes and other dermatological conditions. Some of the images are uploaded with, or later annotated with, associated diagnoses or other information (e.g., “this rash went away when I stopped drinking milk”). A user uploads a new image of an unknown skin condition to the library. Image analysis techniques are employed to identify salient similarities between features of the uploaded image, and features of images in this reference library. Given the large dataset, statistically relevant correlations emerge that identify to the user certain diagnoses that may be considered, other diagnoses that may likely be ruled-out, and/or anecdotal information about similar skin conditions from other users. Similar arrangements can employ audio and/or other physiologically-derived signals. A great variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

1 - 44 . (canceled) 
     
     
         45 . An apparatus comprising:
 one or more side walls defining a booth;   a plurality of cameras disposed along the one or more side walls, directed toward an interior of the booth;   an image processor connected to said cameras;   a plurality of light sources disposed along the one or more side walls, directed toward the interior of the booth; and   driving electronics for the light sources;   wherein:   the light sources comprise plural lighting elements having different spectral characteristics;   the driving electronics cause different of the lighting elements to illuminate at different times, so that the cameras can capture imagery under plural different spectral lighting conditions; and   the image processor is adapted to produce spectricity measurements based on imagery from the cameras.   
     
     
         46 . A method comprising:
 capturing plural frames of skin imagery from a mammalian body, using a smartphone;   deriving information from the captured imagery, and comparing the derived information with reference information; and   reporting results of said comparing.   
     
     
         47 . The method of  claim 46  in which said frames are captured by a lay-person rather than a physician, and the reference information is based on imagery previously captured by lay-persons, and also is based on imagery previously-captured by physicians. 
     
     
         48 . (canceled) 
     
     
         49 . The method of  claim 46  in which one of said captured frames includes a known object distinct from skin, the method further includes determining a camera pose relative to the skin based on apparent geometrical distortion of said object in the captured frame. 
     
     
         50 . The method of  claim 46  in which the mammalian body is an animal body, rather than a human body. 
     
     
         51 . The method of  claim 46  in which said deriving is performed using a representation of the captured skin imagery in a LAB color space. 
     
     
         52 - 58 . (canceled) 
     
     
         59 . The apparatus of  claim 45  in which:
 at least one of said cameras includes a color filter arrangement comprising elements of three different filter colors, to yield frames of imagery having three different color channels; 
 the light sources comprise lighting elements having N different illumination spectra; and 
 the image processor is adapted to produce spectricity measurements in more than N different spectral bands, due to coupling between said N different illumination spectra, and plural of said different color channels. 
 
     
     
         60 . The apparatus of  claim 59  wherein said spectral bands include at least two bands of different spectral widths.