Multi-feature representation for burn depth classification via burn images

Abstract

Burns are a common and severe problem in public health. Early and timely classification of burn depth is effective for patients to receive targeted treatment, which can save their lives. However, identifying burn depth from burn images requires physicians to have a lot of medical experience. The speed and precision to diagnose the depth of the burn image are not guaranteed due to its high workload and cost for clinicians. Thus, implementing some smart burn depth classification methods is desired at present. In this paper, we propose a computerized method to automatically evaluate the burn depth by using multiple features extracted from burn images. Specifically, color features, texture features and latent features are extracted from burn images, which are then concatenated together and fed to several classifiers, such as random forest to generate the burn level. A standard burn image dataset is evaluated by our proposed method, obtaining an Accuracy of 85.86% and 76.87% by classifying the burn images into two classes and three classes, respectively, outperforming conventional methods in the burn depth identification. The results indicate our approach is effective and has the potential to aid medical experts in identifying different burn depths.

Keywords: Burn; Burn depth; Classification; Image processing; Multiple features.