Effects Of Smartphone Sensor Characteristics On Dermatoscopic Images, A Simulation Study

Dermatoscopes are commonly used to evaluate skin lesions. There are a wide array of medical imaging devices entering the market, some of which allow patients to analyze skin lesions themselves. These devices usually come in the form of smartphone attachments that leverage smartphone optics to acquire images; and in some cases, even give a preliminary diagnosis. While these attachments are useful, smartphone sensors are small which limits the extent and detail of captured images as opposed to images from a professional camera.Our work focuses on the information lost due to the known limitations of smartphone sensors, and its effect on image appearance. This analysis has been performed using a virtual simulation pipeline for dermatology, VCT-Derma, which contains simulated skin and dermatoscope models, among others. We discuss the necessary sensor parameters to adapt the dermatoscope model to various sensors, and with the help of the skin model and a colorgauge chart, obtain images from the sensors simulated. Results indicate differences in image clarity as well as observed color fidelity between the reference dermatoscope and smartphone sensors.Results of imaging the skin model show improved feature clarity in the reference device image as compared to the two smartphone sensors. Results of imaging the colorgauge chart show average Delta F2000 values of similar to 12.5 across all color patches for the reference device, and smartphone sensors. Under the same lightning, smartphone sensors showed areas with saturated pixels, as opposed to the reference device. Research is ongoing on the influence of multispectral illumination on these sensors.