Video-Telemedicine with Reliable Color Based on Multispectral Technology

Videos and still-images play quite important role in telemedicine, such as dermatology, teleconsultation, endoscopy, and surgery video. However, one of the problems is the lack of color reproducibility, since it is difficult to reproduce the original color of the object in conventional color imaging systems based on RGB (red, green, blue). Although the color management technology enables to deal with color as device independent information, the color reproduced on the monitor still does not agree with the original object. For the solution to such problem, the spectrum-based technology, instead of conventional RGB based methods has been developed aiming at high-fidelity color reproduction in both video and still image systems. By using multispectral image capture, illumination spectrum measurement, spectrum-based color conversion, and multiprimary color display, the colors of real object can be faithfully reproduced on a display. The technology is called "natural vision (NV)" (Yamaguchi et. al., 2008). The advantages of multispectral technology in various possible applications, such as telemedicine, digital archives of historical heritage or art works, electronic commerce, educational video contents, and high-quality color printing, have been shown in the literature. In this chapter, we introduce the system developed for video-based telemedicine with reliable color, and demonstrate the results of experimental evaluation for the telemedicine applications including dermatology, surgery video and the video-based teleconsultation between a general hospital and a clinic.