Human Body Volume Estimation in a Clinical Environment

Medical scientists try to improve the accuracy of human body composition measurement by segmental Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA). Determination of body composition includes estimation of total body water, fat-free mass and extraand intra-cellular water, which are of great importance in disease states like cancer, malnutrition, disturbances of hydration as seen in heart-, hepaticand renal failure. Currently, body composition is derived by measuring the specific resistivity of the total body or of its segments and heuristically determining their volumes. Whereas the resistivity measurement is very accurate, the main uncertainty factor remains the volume estimation, which is performed through empirical models. To improve the accuracy of volume estimation a vision based measurement system is proposed. A portable system consisting of stereo cameras and projectors has been constructed, which can be used in a clinical environment even for bedridden, disabled and intensive care patients. In this work the main focus lies on realistic human body modeling and volume calculation from noisy three-dimensional data. The accuracy of the volume measurement has been compared to groundtruth data of two volunteers.