A capacitive image analysis system to characterize the skin surface

The assessment of the skin surface is of a great importance in the dermocosmetic field to evaluate the response of individuals to medical or cosmetic treatments. In vivo quantitative measurements of changes in skin topographic structures provide a valuable tool, thanks to non invasive devices. However, the high cost of the systems commonly employed is limiting, in practice, the widespread use of these devices for a routine based approach. In this work we resume the research activity carried out to develop a compact low-cost system for skin surface assessment based on capacitive image analysis. The accuracy of the capacitive measurements has been assessed by implementing an image fusion algorithm to enable a comparison between capacitive images and the ones obtained using high cost profilometry, the most accurate method in the field. In particular, very encouraging results have been achieved in the measurement of the wrinkles' width. On the other hand, experiments show all the native design limitations of the capacitive device, primarily conceived to work with fingerprints, to measure the wrinkles' depth, which point toward a specific re-designing of the capacitive device.