Mechanical Design and Development of a Digital Tongue Imaging System Equipped with LEDs

Objectives: The aims of this study are to design a optimized mechanical structure of digital tongue imaging system (DTIS) equipped with LEDs in aspects of object distance and camera angle of coverage. Methods and Results: We tried to find optimized object distance while recording a rectangular object of common tongue size. In case object distance is 22 cm or less, edge of the rectangle was not taken beyond the shooting range. In contrast, if object distance is 40 cm or more, the rectangle image was too small. Therefore when considering the variation of subjects, we selected distance of 35-40 cm as appropriate object distance for the DTIS. We also tried to find optimized angle between camera view axis and horizontal line. We photographed from the side of the face of 7 adults with exposed tongue. We drew an exposed tongue lines to connect the tongue tip points and the tongue root points by using the photos acquired from the side faces. And then we calculated the tongue exposure angles between the vertical line and the exposed tongue lines. Mean tongue exposure angle was $28.3^{\circ}$ when tongue was lightly exposed and $13.3^{\circ}$ when maximally. So we determined $73^{\circ}$ as appropriate slope angle of part in contact with face of the DTIS and by considering that the standard variation was great, we designed control gears to adjust the slope of the camera view axis and to regulate the object distance. Conclusions: We designed a optimized mechanical structure in object distance and slope angle of part in contact with face of the DTIS.

LED 광원을 이용한 디지털 혀 영상 촬영장치의 기구설계와 개발