Efficient and effective extraction of vocal fold vibratory patterns from high-speed digital imaging

High-speed digital imaging can provide valuable information on disordered voice production in voice science. However, the large amounts of high-speed image data with limited image resolutions produce significant challenges for computer analysis, and thus effective and efficient image edge extraction methods allowing for the batch analysis of high-speed images of vocal folds is clinically important. In this paper, a novel algorithm for automatic image edge detection is proposed to effectively and efficiently process high-speed images of the vocal folds. The method integrates Lagrange interpolation, differentiation, and Canny edge detection, which allow objective extraction of aperiodic vocal fold vibratory patterns from large numbers of high-speed digital images. This method and two other popular algorithms, histogram and active contour, are performed on 10 sets of high-speed video data from excised larynx experiments to compare their performances in analyzing high-speed images. The accuracy in computing glottal area and the computation time of these methods are investigated. The results show that our proposed method provides the most accurate and efficient detection, and is applicable when processing low-resolution images. In this study, we focus on developing a method to effectively and efficiently process high-speed image data from excised larynges. However, in addition we show the clinical potential of this method by use of example high-speed image data obtained from a patient with vocal nodules.The proposed automatic image-processing algorithm may provide a valuable biomedical application for the clinical assessment of vocal disorders by use of high-speed digital imaging.