In the skincare industry, the products and services offered for skin differ largely according to a person’s skin type. Medical practitioners use skin analyzers to determine the client’s skin type and concerns. A skin analyzer is a skin imaging equipment that analyzes the skin in depth. It is integrated with a high-resolution camera that can extract minute details of the skin.
These are widely used in dermatology clinics, the skincare product manufacturing industry, and beauty retail outlets to provide users with personalized skin diagnosis and treatment. Sebum, pigment, collagen, elasticity, pores, acne sensitivity, and moisture are some of the most common factors of the skin determined by skin analyzers. These machines improve diagnostic accuracy and thereby improve aftercare.
In this blog, we are exploring types of skin analyzers prevalent in the industry and giving insights on the kind of cameras that should be used to get the best results.
Types of Skin Analyzers
Skin analyzers are broadly of two types. Handheld skin analyzers and tabletop skin analyzers. Both of these skin analyzers differ primarily in the magnitude of analysis they perform.
Handheld analyzers are easy to use and portable. These are often used for preliminary and small-scale analysis. They come with high-resolution magnifying cameras to analyze a small section of skin in detail. As the name suggests, these can be used and operated handheld due to their compact nature.
Tabletop analyzers serve the purpose of detailed skin analysis. As the name suggests, these tabletop devices perform analysis on a more extensive skin area. Tabletop analyzers often require multiple cameras and needs high-performing processors. When compared to handheld skin analyzers, these also require larger power consumption.
Let us look into various types of skin Analyzers in detail.
- Dermatoscopes: A dermatoscope is a hand-held skin analyzer device. Dermatoscopes comprise a high-definition video camera, a high-magnification polarizing lens, and multiple ultra-bright LEDs. It can be used to examine and diagnose skin lesions and diseases, such as melanoma. It can also help a person examine the scalp, hair, and nails. These are easy-to-use, versatile devices.
- 3D Skin Imaging Systems: 3D skin imaging systems capture the entire skin surface in macro quality resolution with a single capture. In these systems, one 3D capture covers nearly all of the patient’s skin, saving photography time and improving patient comfort. 3D skin imaging system provides ultra-high resolution 3D images, which reduces the number of close-up images required. These are integrated with software that allows clinicians to map and monitor pigmented lesions and distributed diseases of the skin.
- Digital Dermoscopy Systems: Digital dermoscopy is performed by carrying out a microscopic examination of the entire skin surface, locating lesions, photographing them, and representing them on complete body maps. These non-invasive methodologies require high-resolution microscopic cameras and image-processing integrations to recognize skin conditions.
- Mole Mapping Systems: Mole mapping systems use a high-resolution professional camera and advanced software to map a patient’s entire skin surface, creating a photographic baseline of all their moles. This methodology requires high-resolution digital photographs and sophisticated software to monitor the moles on the skin. Using digital mole mapping, dermatologists can more easily spot new moles and moles that are rapidly changing – one of the possible signs of melanoma.
Cameras are an integral part of any skin analyzer. The performance of an analyzer is directly proportional to the number and resolution of cameras used in it.
What e-con Systems Have to Offer in Digital Skin Analyzer Technologies
e-con Systems, an industry pioneer, has 20+ years of experience designing, developing, and manufacturing OEM cameras.
We provide a complete solution for digital skin analyzer camera and processor requirements.
Let us look at the two types of skin analyzers and their specified camera, processor & lens requirements.
Handheld Skin Analyzer
A high-resolution 20 MP camera integrated with a Qualcomm processor and a macro imaging lens is recommended for a handheld skin analyzer. Handheld skin analyzers are compact and portable devices and, hence, require energy-efficient processors. A macro lens is used as the subject will be near the device as opposed to tabletop skin analyzers.
Qualcomm processors are ideal for handheld skin analyzers due to their compact form factor. These processors can fit into slim profiles of handheld skin analyzers, maintaining a sleek and lightweight design. These processors are also optimized for energy efficiency to prolong battery life, which makes them suitable for handheld devices. Qualcomm processors also support wireless connectivity, USB, MIPI-CSI, and varied camera & sensor interfaces.
A 20MP sensor resolution should be used to meet the intricate imaging requirements of a handheld skin analyzer. This will provide high-resolution images coupled with high-quality digital zooming capability, retaining minute details of the target area.
Tabletop Skin Analyzer
A high-resolution 20MP camera with an NVIDIA processor will meet the high-performance, high-power requirements of a tabletop skin analyzer. This variation of the skin analyzer is a stationary device often equipped with multiple cameras, leading to a bigger form factor and processing requirements.
The NVIDIA processors are power efficient and deliver high performance with their parallel processing capabilities. The multiple-camera model of the tabletop skin analyzer is also required for it to have deep learning and AI image processing units. NVIDIA processors also support high-speed PCIe, HDMI, CUDA, AI/ML tensor cores, and GDDR memory interfaces. An efficient and high-speed image processing unit contributes largely to the performance of tabletop analyzers.
A high-resolution 20MP camera with the following attributes meets the skin analyzer camera needs:
- Multi-camera support
- Lowlight & NIR
- High FPS
- Finetuned ISP
- Multiple Interfaces Support
Read more on our newly launched 20MP AR2020 High Resolution Camera.
Check out our range of other high-quality, high-resolution cameras that are a perfect fit for dermatology imaging – e-con Systems Dermatology Cameras
We integrate our cameras with high-end processors. Visit our Nvidia Cameras Page and Qualcomm Cameras Page to know more.
Write to us at camerasolutions@e-consystems.com for customization services and related inquiries.
Balaji is a camera expert with 18+ years of experience in embedded product design, camera solutions, and product development. In e-con Systems, he has built numerous camera solutions in the field of ophthalmology, laboratory equipment, dentistry, assistive technology, dermatology, and more. He has played an integral part in helping many customers build their products by integrating the right vision technology into them.