A combined method for segmentation and registration for an advanced and progressive evaluation of thermal images

In this paper, a method that combines image analysis techniques, such as segmentation and registration, is proposed for an advanced and progressive evaluation of thermograms. The method is applied for the prevention of muscle injury in high-performance athletes, in collaboration with a Brazilian professional soccer club. The goal is to produce information on spatio-temporal variations of thermograms favoring the investigation of the athletes' conditions along the competition. The proposed method improves on current practice by providing a means for automatically detecting adaptive body-shaped regions of interest, instead of the manual selection of simple shapes. Specifically, our approach combines the optimization features in Otsu's method with a correction factor and post-processing techniques, enhancing thermal-image segmentation when compared to other methods. Additional contributions resulting from the combination of the segmentation and registration steps of our approach are the progressive analyses of thermograms in a unique spatial coordinate system and the accurate extraction of measurements and isotherms.