A challenging problem looking for a solution

[Peter Stevrin]

Hello,

 

I have a challenging problem to solve. We are constructing an ear scanner in
order to replace silicon impression in the hearing aid manufacturing
process. The project is managed by my own development company called Stevrin
& Partners in Sweden.

 

We are capturing a video sequence of the ear canal. This video sequence is
then processed in the computer for detecting and tracking features/points.
The next step is to construct a point cloud and the remaining steps are
"business as usual".

 

Many people - especially men - have hair in some part of their ear canal.
This hairy space is about 12mm as an average measure. The problem is that
the hair disturbs the images, when they are processed in the computer. We
have tried to remove the hair with a trimmer in a manual way, but the hair
is then about 0.5mm high and is still disturbing.

 

What I want is to find a digital way to remove the hair, which could some
sort of software module, which can be implemented in our own developed
software (C++). As time is important for the manufacturing process, it is
important that the hair can be removed, ignored, eliminated etc. in an
automatic way.

 

I hope that this short summary give a view of this challenging problem.

 

My name is Peter Stevrin and I am an associate professor in business
administration. I work at a university and I am, as you can understand, not
a technician. But I also work as an innovator in different fields through my
development company.

 

I am very interested to hear, if anyone at this list has a proposal to
construct a successful solution.

 

Best regards,

 

Peter Stevrin

[Sami Badawi-2]

Hejsan Peter,

It is a hard to comment on your problem without seeing an image, but
my immediate suggestion is color segmentation, then to treat the hairs
with a particle analyzer.  This would enable you to be able to
distinguish the hairs based on their properties: color, size and
circularity.  After that you can replace the segmented hair areas with
the average color in the neighborhood -- essentially making them
disappear.

If that doesn't work you could also make a specialized thin line color
segmenting algorithm.

-Sami Badawi
http://www.shapelogic.org


On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Peter Stevrin <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hello,
>
>
>
> I have a challenging problem to solve. We are constructing an ear scanner in
> order to replace silicon impression in the hearing aid manufacturing
> process. The project is managed by my own development company called Stevrin
> & Partners in Sweden.
>
>
>
> We are capturing a video sequence of the ear canal. This video sequence is
> then processed in the computer for detecting and tracking features/points.
> The next step is to construct a point cloud and the remaining steps are
> "business as usual".
>
>
>
> Many people - especially men - have hair in some part of their ear canal.
> This hairy space is about 12mm as an average measure. The problem is that
> the hair disturbs the images, when they are processed in the computer. We
> have tried to remove the hair with a trimmer in a manual way, but the hair
> is then about 0.5mm high and is still disturbing.
>
>
>
> What I want is to find a digital way to remove the hair, which could some
> sort of software module, which can be implemented in our own developed
> software (C++). As time is important for the manufacturing process, it is
> important that the hair can be removed, ignored, eliminated etc. in an
> automatic way.
>
>
>
> I hope that this short summary give a view of this challenging problem.
>
>
>
> My name is Peter Stevrin and I am an associate professor in business
> administration. I work at a university and I am, as you can understand, not
> a technician. But I also work as an innovator in different fields through my
> development company.
>
>
>
> I am very interested to hear, if anyone at this list has a proposal to
> construct a successful solution.
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
>
> Peter Stevrin
>