1

A proposed pseudo-coloring presentation for

gray infrared images of breast thermography,
comparing with different color maps
Z. Zahedi,S. Sadri, M.Soltani

Abstract—Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. It is proved that early detection of breast cancer can
improve survival rate in many cases. Thermography has a potentially perfect impact on early detection of breast cancer
and can be as an adjunct tool to mammography. Since thermograms are usually provided in gray level images, it is
required to transform gray images to the colored ones for easier human interpretation. In fact human beings can only
discern a few dozen gray level values while they can distinguish thousands of colors, while they can distinguish thousands
of colors. To this end, pseudo coloring is one of the importantfactors for accurate vision diagnosis. In this process false
colors are allocated to gray levels to improve vision assessment in abnormality detection. In this paper, we present a novel
nonlinear function transform for pseudo-coloring of infrared breast images in which color selection has been done based
on physiological properties of human eye. In comparison with other pseudo coloring techniques the presented method
offers a smoother uniform color scale in which colors are in a well suited contrast to human eye that guarantees a faster
and easier abnormalities identification.

Keyword:Breast cancer, Standard clinical thermography,Infrared cameras,Infrared imaging, Thermogram,Gray

level, Pseudo-coloring.
1. Introduction
All objects with the temperature above absolute zero (-273˚C) emit infrared radiation from their surface. The
Stefan-Boltzmann Law defines the relation between radiated energy and temperature by stating that the total radiation
emitted by an object is directly proportional to the object's area and emissivity and the fourth power of its absolute
temperature. Infrared rays are found in the electromagnetic spectrum within the wavelengths of 0.75 micron-1mm.
Human skin emits infrared radiation mainly between 2-20 micron wavelength rang, with an average peak at 9-10
microns. Since the emissivity of human skin is extremely high -0.98- (within 1% of that of a black body), and skin’s
metabolic activity is very low so measurements of infrared radiation emitted by the skin can be converted directly to
accurate temperature values. And this will result in real thermal pattern of organs of the body under skin [1, 2].Human
body’s surface temperature has been an indicator of health [3]. There is a detailed research about the historicalrole of
body’s temperature as an indicator of health [2]. Thermal distribution of skin’s surfacein different parts of body can
be used to evaluate body’s organs health via infrared imaging. In this paper we focused on breast cancer as a leading
cause of women’s death. It is the most common cancer in women (about 30% of all cancers). And is also the second
common cancer after lung cancer. One woman out of eight develops breast cancer during lifetime [4]. Findings show
that if breast cancer could be detected in early stage of its development and progression, survival is possible. So we
need a modality to detect breast cancer in early stage of formation. Infrared imaging or thermography has proved to
be efficient for this propose. Clinical thermography is an imaging system of the thermal patterns and gradients, a
procedure that detects, records, and produces an image of a patient’s skinsurface temperatures or thermal patterns,
used for the analysis and identification of underlying process within the body leading to cancer, pain, inflammation,
and hormonal or metabolic condition [5]. Over the years, due to considerable development in infrared camera
technology and advances in image processing techniques it became a subject of medical interest gradually [6]. Breast
thermography has a unique role in early detection of breast cancer when the tumor is in its early dense tissue [7, 8];
Early detection of breast cancer is important as it significantly provides higher chances of survival [9] Mammography
can detect tumors only once they exceed a certain size, in fact it requires a mass which is large enough to be
visualized. So it detects breast cancer too late when survival probability is very low. Small Tumors can be identified
using thermography due to the high metabolic activity of cancer cells which leads to an increase in local temperature
picked up by infrared imaging [10, 11, 12]. According to large scale studies from 1967 to 1998, breast thermography
obtained an average sensitivity and specificity of 90% which results in a dramatic survival benefit [13].In addition,
compared to Mammography, thermography is a non-invasive test, there is no contact with the body, no radiation and
the procedure is painless. It should be viewed as a complementary, not competitive tool to mammography, ultrasound
and other screening tool. The results might be followed by other means of testing such as mammography, ultrasound
or MRI to confirm the interpretation. In fact when clinical examination, mammography or other screening tools, and
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IR images were combined, a sensitivity of 98% was achieved. So the best results come from combining various
assessment techniques, it may provide the greatest potential for breast conservation and survival [13].

Archiving of both diagnostic quality infrared images and relevant clinical data is an important requirement for
medical thermography. In case of breast thermography, the thermal image should be instantly analyzed and
summarized in a readable output using a narrow temperature range of detection that covers the full range of
physiological temperature. A range of 8 °C is proposed as optimum. The body temperature captured by clinical IR
camera should be approximately in range of 27-35 centigrade degrees to cover required physiological temperature
range for breast thermography which is mapped to a large range from 0 to 255. The gray images should be colored
by using pseudo coloring software that provides interpretation on output colored images more easily since human
beings can only discern a few dozen gray level values while they can distinguish thousands of colors [14].
Assignment of color to the temperature range should be optimized for visual interpretation and identification of
suspect temperatures and thermal pattern distribution. Physiologically significant color changes should be within
half a degree Celsius (0.5°C). A standard medical color scale is, affording an image with 16 continuous colors that
are divided between 8 °C, thereby yielding 0.5 °C per color. The 16 colors on the 16-step scale were utilized as
base colors and intermediate colors computed by linearly interpolating the red, green, and blue intensity values from
each base color to the next. [15]. As a matter of fact, pseudo-coloring is a typical process used as a means of
supplementing the information in various fields such as medicine, industry and etc. This process can significantly
improve the perceptual capabilities of human visual system to extract more information from the image. This will
provide a better qualitative overview of complex data sets and will assist in identifying regions of interest for more
focused quantitative and qualitative analysis, it helps similarly joined areas in the scene become more
distinguishable. Color is commonly used in data visualization in order to convey a wide variety of information
including metric values, patterns, emphasis, etc. Using colored thermograms result in a more effective visualization
and then accurately diagnosis. The three main points for pseudo-coloring of IR images are:

- The algorithm for coloring should be such that accurate identification of individual data elements is possible.
- Coloring should be such that the target (abnormality of the cells) is detectable from non-target elements.
- The number of colors should be optimum for vision judgment.

In this research we focus on pseudo-coloring motivation of thermograms, its role in visual diagnosis and
properties of a suitable color scale based on human perception of color, as well as comparing some common color scales
and introducing a proposed nonlinear function transform for pseudo-coloring of infrared breast images based on
physiological properties of human eye and its efficiency by experience.
2. Related works
Various related pseudo-coloring works have been published in [16]. In the following we will describe hot color map,
warm color map and sin color map. The first color scale that we used for gray thermograms is hot color scale. This
color scale changes smoothly from black, through shades of red, orange, and yellow to white [16]. This scale is
produced based on simple transform functions in RGB space as shown in ―(1)‖.

and

and

(1)
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In ―(1)‖ I represents the gray value or intensity, m is the number of colors of the ―Hot‖ scale, and n = f l (3/8.m), in which
f l(x) rounds x to the nearest integer toward zero, ―fig1‖. The next scale, warm color, varies from dark blue, through
magenta and orange, to light yellow. In order to produce such a scale, a spiral path on diagonal of RGB model according to
―(2)‖ is used. In ―(2)‖ the ―t‖ parameter is intensity [17].

√ √
( ) ( ) ( √ √ ).( )
√

and √

and √ {

(2)
In sin color scale, sin transformation functions used to assign the colors to gray level image according to ―(2)‖. Human eye
are sensitive to longer wavelengths (yellow, orange, red) than shorter wavelengths (cyan, blue). In addition, there is a
inherent contrast nature between cold color and hot color, hot colors are focused at shorter distance to retina than cold color
so they are more suitable for and details. So we want targets illustrate with orange and red and non target such as
background illustrate with blue color. Functions in ―(2)‖ provide such conditions. Before using sin function, we applied a
pre-transformation function. This function expresses the relationship between pixel value and the relative cumulative
gradient magnitude of original image intensities [18].

and
and
(3)
In order to compare the capability of each color map, we have applied each one on a synthetic image. The results are
shown in Fig. 1.

A B c d

Fig. 1: a) A synthetic image, b) mapping using hot color scale, c) mapping using warm color scale, d) mapping using sin color scale.

3. Proposed color scale

In an attempt to color breast thermal images effectively, we define a linear pseudo coloring technique based on the
psychological and physiological processing involved in the human perception of color. As a matter of fact, human color
perception can be divided into physiological and psychological aspects. In order to show the strength of the method
theoretically, we first explain psychological and physiological aspects of human perception of color. Then we describe the
presented color assignment approach in the following.

3.1. Physiological and psychological aspects of human perception

The eye lens, retina, play the main role in the physiological processing of light. The function of the lens is to focus the
incoming light on the retina. Different wavelength lights require different focal lengths. Therefore, for pure hues the lens
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must change its shape so that the light is focused correctly. For instance, if pure blue (short wavelength) and pure red (long
wavelength), are intermixed, the lens has to constantly change shape and the eye will become tired. A related effect, called
hromostereopsis, is the appearance of pure colors located at the same distance from the eye as being at different distances
(e.g., reds appear closer and blues appear further). Sometimes, pure blue focuses in front of the retina and appears
unfocused. The lens also absorbs light about twice as much in the blue region as in the red region, meaning that people are
more sensitive to longer wavelengths (yellows and oranges) than to shorter wavelengths (cyan and blue) [19].
Psychological processing is a vast field of study and not as well understood as physiological processing. In this field,
simultaneous contrast, color constancy, and the effects of various backgrounds on color perception are the main aspects
usually examined. Simultaneous contrast is the effect caused when the color of a patch is shifted perceptually by the color
of adjacent patches [20]. For example, colors tend to look darker and smaller against white, and lighter and larger against
black as, Color surroundings cause chromatic induction (a color region appears tinged with the complementary hue of the
surround), which can make the same colors look different or different colors look the same. Many other factors such as
field size and viewing conditions also affect the appearance of the color perceived.

3.2. Optimum Color Assignment

In order to have an effective pseudo-coloring scheme, first step is designing a suitable color scale. Accordingly, the
number of colors in the color scale is an important factor for a suitable color choice for target and no target objects in the
images. For medical application as mentioned standard medical color scale requires 16 continuous colors that are divided
between 8 °C [21]. In addition, there are three important factors to design a color map. One of them is discemibility, which
is related to how easy is it to distinguish an item from its background. Second one is conspicuity, which means how
obvious is the item relative to its neighbors and third one is salience, which is defined as how well does the item ―pop out‖
from the display as a whole. Accordingly, based on the physiology and psychologically of the human visual system, we try
to remark these three factors in the presented scheme and for this purpose we consider the following points.

1) The simultaneous display of extreme-spectrum colors was avoided. This causes the lens to rapidly change shape
and thus tires the eyes. In addition the adjacency of the areas with pure blue and pure red was avoided to prevent
unwanted depth effects.

2) The warm color (red, orange, yellow) was applied to display the main areas that are hotter relative to the rest of
the area and cold color (blue, cyan and green) for non target parts of thermograms.

3) There are no blue cones in the center of the retina, as shown in ―Fig. 2‖, so fine details are difficult to see and we
avoided using blue for fine details. But blue is the best choice for background color, since for the concentration
of blue cones is in periphery of the retina Red and green cones are in the central parts of retina so we avoided
applying red and green to the periphery of large displays [19, 22, 23].

4) The intuitive ordering of colors helps establish intuitive consistency in a design. The spectral and perceptual
order of red, green, yellow, and blue can guide the order of the concepts attached to color. For instance, red is
first in the spectral order and focuses in the foreground, green and yellow focus in the middle, while blue focuses
in the background. We consider this intuitive ordering of colors in our color scale.

Fig.2. The arrangement of three type cone in the center of retina [24]

In designing the proposed color scale we try to display the whole of body separated from the background generally, so
since the most sensitivity of the eye belongs to green color and its wavelength focused at the middle distances to retina;
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green could be the most suitable color to color the middle intensities. There are no blue cones in the center of the retina
and the wavelength of blue color is focused at the most farthest distance to retina so this color used to display low
intensities of gray thermograms in background, these cause the targets which are hot areas to be discriminated
significantly, So that thermologists find abnormal areas fast and easily. Interpretation of thermograms depends crucially on
the color mapping applied. So choosing a suitable pseudo-coloring algorithm to do this is very important.
According to points mentioned above finally we offer a color scale to color thermograms. This color map changes from
blue, through shades of cyan, green, and yellow, orange, red and to white.

4. Implementation
4.1. Databases
In an attempt to show the strength of the presented scheme, we applied our algorithm on images of the following
databases.
Database 1: this contains 2 thermogram captured in a clinical thermography center including one normal and one
cancerous case [25].
Database 2: it has 165 breast thermography images of IUT_OPTIC. In order to produce diagnostic quality
infrared images, certain laboratory and patient preparation protocols, stated in “Medical Infrared Imaging” written
by Diakides and Bronzino were strictly adhered [2].

Samples of the database 2 are shown in ―Fig. 3‖. In these thermograms the hotter areas have been specified with
higher intensities (brighter gray level).

Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

a b c
Fig.3. Examples of gray breast thermograms. Column a, b and c are frontal view, left oblique view and Right oblique view respectively. Case 1 is a
normal one and the three other cases are cancerous ones.
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4.2 Results

For our experimental evaluation, we used a PC with Intel (R) Core (TM) 2 Duo CPU, T9300 2.5 GHz and 4 GB
RAM and simulation of the proposed pseudo coloring algorithm is done in MATLAB 2010.
―Fig. 4‖ , ―Fig. 5‖ , ―Fig. 6‖ and ―Fig. 7‖ were obtained by applying hot color scale, warm color scale sin color scale
and the proposed scale on the cases that are shown in ―Fig. 3‖ respectively. As well as this to show the capability of
the presented scheme, we applied our proposed method and the other three color scale for better and easier
comparison on the images of Database 1 as shown in ―Fig. 8‖.
As it seen in ―Fig. 7‖ and ―Fig. 8‖ the result is quite acceptable. The efficiency of the proposed color scale in
particular in abnormal thermogram is conspicuous as thermal patterns are sharp and prominently displayed. Optimum
number of colors, enough color contrast -inherent contrast between warm and cold colors- as well as eye-compatible
color sequence has made this scale more successful in details presentation by minimizing loss of vision information in
colored version.

Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

a b c
Fig.4. A. synthetic image, B pseudo color synthetic image with hot color scale and column a, b and c. pseudo color thermograms example of
figure3.
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Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

a b c
Fig.5. A. synthetic image, B pseudo-color synthetic image with warm color scale and column a, b and c. pseudo-color thermograms example of
Figure3.

Case 1

Case 2

a b c
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Case 3

Case 4

a b c
Fig.6. A. synthetic image, B. pseudo-color syntetic image with sin color scale and column a, b and c. pseudo-color thermograms example of
figure3.

Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

(a) (b) (c)

Fig.7. A. synthetic image, B. pseudo-color syntetic image with proposed color scale and column a, b and c. pseudo-color thermograms example of
figure3.
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R1

R2

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Fig.8. R1 and R2. the cancerous case and normal case respectively presented in gray level, a), b), c) and d) and d. Pseudo-colored thermograms
example of Case 1 and case 2 with hot color, warm color, sin color and proposed color scale respectively.

4.3 Discussion
As it can be seen from figs. 4 from 8, most important benefit of ―hot color scale‖ is that hot areas illustrate shiny. So the
viewer is attracted to these areas. But because of using shade of similar colors that all of them are categorize in the same
group (hot color are allocated to hole of intensity rang), discrimination between different areas in more intensities don’t
accomplish. In ―warm color scale‖, hot areas have been illustrated glittery too. In addition, colors in this method provide
better conditions for thermologists to discriminate different areas faster than hot color scale. But it is not perfect for
distinguishing the risky areas in thermograms. This method is suitable for industrial applications. In ―sin color‖ algorithm
using hot color for high intensity and cold color for low intensity is fine for viewer. But allocating shades of light green to
meddle intensity in a thin bound is not suitable. This makes the content information in these areas harder to be conveyed by
the viewer. The presented coloring in this paper is more successful than three previous scales. In this color scale hot areas
are specified with white color. This choice provides better discrimination between the hottest areas than the others. In
addition, in this color scale we allocate cold color such as dark blue, blue, cyan to values in lower bound of intensity, the
shades of green color to large rang of middle intensities and hot color such as yellow, orange, red to thin range of values in
upper level of intensity, in fact, since for the wavelength of red color focused at the shorter distance to retina and the
concentration of red cones in the center of retina is more than the two other kinds and the red color attract the human
attention more than the other colors, so it is the best choice for hottest region, the areas that need to be seen fast and easy.
5. Conclusion
In an attempt to have an obvious map of the breast and accordingly, increase the accuracy of breast cancer detection, in
this paper, we proposed a pseudo coloring algorithm to display the abnormal parts of the breasts prominently in the breast
thermal images. As a matter of fact, interpretation of thermograms depends crucially on which color mapping is applied on
the images. In this paper, we try to design a color scale based on both physiological and psychological properties of human
eye and benefit from natural contrast between cold and warm colors and the meaningful color allocation of these colors
according to the associated relative temperature as well, lower intensities are associated with lower temperature so they are
considered as colder areas and cold color. Similarly, allocation of warm colors to higher intensities with higher
temperatures. Experimental results confirm the acceptable performance of the proposed algorithm. These cause the targets
which are hot areas and suspicious vascular patterns to be discriminated significantly easier and interpreted effectively, So
that thermologists would be able to make more reliable diagnosis. Interpretation of thermograms depends crucially on the
color mapping applied. So choosing a suitable pseudo-coloring algorithm to do this is very important.

Acknowledgment
Our most sincere thanks go to Mr. Razifor providing the cameras. Special thanks to Ms. Mahmoodzade for kind help
in data providing. We also like to appreciate the commitment and support of the staff member’s of JAM Medical
Imaging center, Isfahan, Iran.
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