Texture analysis of the surface of the human skin

The roughness parameters known from surface engineering often used to describe the microtopography of the surface of the skin do not, by definition, take into account the two-dimensional relationships of the stratum corneum. An approximate description of these relationships can be obtained by scanning several radial profile sections. A more detailed analysis of the characteristic surface relief of the skin can also be based on the texture parameters used to characterize many natural structures. These types of parameters can be extracted from the gray level images of an impression of the surface of the skin--a replica--that has been magnified under a microscope, photographed with a CCD camera and subsequently subjected to image analysis by a digital computer. The purpose of this study is to determine not only the usefulness of texture parameters for describing the morphology of the surface of the human skin but also whether, for example, cosmetically treated skin can be detected by means of texture analysis.