Software development for digital Chinese medicine tongue diagnosis

• Main Author: Ong Chun Guan Marcus
• Other Authors: Zheng Jianmin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Computer and Information Science; Computer science; Computer vision; Tongue diagnosis
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/175224
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Tongue examination holds significance as an assessment technique in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Due to the numerous associations and connections between the tongue and the body, it can offer visual cues regarding a person's health conditions and overall well-being. However, its subjectivity raises concerns about its reliability, as diagnostic outcomes may vary based on the TCM practitioner's individual knowledge and expertise. To address this, several analysis systems were developed to standardise and eliminate subjectivity in tongue diagnosis. Unfortunately, most of them are immobile and not applied during the optimal state of the tongue which is attained when one has not gone through brushing, rinsing, and exposure to food or drinks. Hence, the objective of the project is to develop a mobile application that allows users to capture images of their tongue and perform tongue diagnosis automatically. The diagnosis system will comprise image segmentation, application of morphology layers, and feature extraction. Additionally, the application will allow users to create an account that can retain and remove records of their past diagnosis. The frontend will be developed using Android Studio, while the backend will be developed with Flask. MySQL will be utilised as the database to store past records, and YOLO will be used to develop the models required for image processing.