Life would be boring without the internet, right? This does not come as a surprise that we have currently got over 4.4 billion internet users in the world. Nonetheless, this number is multiplying every day as quoted by the research
“4,333,560 videos were watched on YouTube every minute in 2019 while the video upload rate was surging up to 300 hours per minute. Around 176k calls were made every day using Skype.”
All of this is to suggest that there are numerous other websites on the internet where graphical material, such as images and videos, is regularly uploaded. After Google, YouTube may be the second most popular search engine, with thousands of videos posted every minute.
Pictures and videos grab our attention easily. Why? Why do they keep us hooked to our smartphones and never let us feel bored or distracted? This is primarily because our brains respond to visuals more quickly than any text-based information.
Keeping in mind the irresistible pull of digital content for human eyes, this article will discuss groundbreaking technology that grants the machines, a cognitive ability to see.
It is astounding to observe computers mirroring human visual system that allows them to visualize, receive and process digital media. While indexing and searching the text is simple, indexing and searching photos need algorithms to read beyond the image. To get the most out of photos and videos, and to give the greatest services to customers based on this data, computers must be able to interpret and “see” inside the digital assets.
What is Computer Vision?
Computer Vision, or CV for short, is a branch of computer science that enables computers to understand digital images and movies at a high level. In a nutshell, it aims to provide techniques and tools that allow computers to “see” and comprehend the information of digital photos and movies.
Computer vision is concerned with the integration of a complex human visual system into computers, allowing them to execute intelligent tasks in the same way that people do.
Applications of Computer Vision
With applications in practically every business and field of life, computer vision has become an integral component of society. Computer vision is used in a variety of industries, including medical, drones, automobiles, e-commerce and retail, call centers, and many more.
Computer Vision in HealthCare
The focus of computer vision revolves around comprehending images and videos. It encompasses a variety of tasks such as image classification, object detection, and segmentation.
Recent technological advancements have proved beneficial in medical imaging, radiology, pathology, and dermatology, making diagnostics easy and simple for health workers. Deep-learning technologies could help doctors by providing second opinions and highlighting potentially dangerous spots in medical reports.
Healthcare is revolutionized with artificially intelligent systems and it has significantly changed the landscape of diagnosis and treatment over the past few years.
Let’s probe into the applications of CV in healthcare:
Cancer Diagnosis
Gone are the times when people used to get panic attacks and suffer from depression on hearing the news of cancer, that too at the verge of going towards the final stage. The chance to treat later-stage disease was truly a difficult challenge for the oncologists.
By the virtue of ML and AI techniques, we are fortunate enough to detect malign illness and timely move closer to its cure.
Machine learning is adequately used in the medical field to diagnose breast and skin cancers, as skin cancer is often difficult to diagnose early because the symptoms are a lot similar to those of other skin diseases.
Likewise, deep learning computer vision models have attained accuracy as of physicians at diagnostic tasks such as distinguishing between cancerous and non-cancerous skin lesions, malign and benign, and melanomas from moles, which is indeed a remarkable achievement.
Image recognition allows scientists to recognize minor changes between cancerous and non-cancerous cells growing inside the body, diagnose data from MRI scans, and write prescriptions accordingly.
COVID-19 Detection
They say desperate times call for desperate measures. We all got slammed by a deadly pandemic last year and eventually placed our last hopes on stopping this spread with AI-driven weapons. It clearly posed a major threat to the worldwide healthcare system, with countries all around the world attempting to combat the disease. Computer vision came to the rescue in making a huge contribution towards overcoming this lethal virus.
The breakneck COVID-19 spread can be tackled with the deep learning computer vision model based on X-ray methodology. COVID-Net, developed by Darwin AI in Canada, is the most widely used method for detecting COVID-19 cases using digital chest x-ray radiography (CXR) images. It has brilliantly shown an accuracy of 92.4% in coronavirus diagnosis.
Mask Detection
Coronavirus can be nipped in the bud if we abide by the safety precautions of wearing masks at all times especially while dealing with the public outside.
To prevent the spread of coronavirus and keep one’s eye on people who are not following public health guidelines, face mask detection is solely designed to detect the mask on faces through facial recognition and amalgamation techniques.
Similarly, computer vision technologies assist countries in implementing masks as a control tool for coronavirus sickness.
As a result, for safe public transit, commercial companies like Uber have developed computer vision technologies like face detection which is installed in mobile apps to keep a check on passengers whether they are wearing the mask or not.
You can take a look at our remarkable face mask detection system that is designed by our trailblazers to combat this pandemic. It also generates alerts against people who are not wearing masks, Secondly, it works for multiple cameras simultaneously.
Tumor Diagnosis
Tumors usually spread quickly in the human body, causing great harm if left untreated. Brain tumors, often cause severe damage to the spinal cord and other parts of the brain. This makes the treatment a tedious task for the patient as well as for the doctor.
Early tumor detection is a blessing in disguise for the patient’s life and thanks to the computer vision applications that have proven immensely useful in the accurate detection of tumors.
Movement Analysis
Deep learning models and computer vision can detect neurological and musculoskeletal illnesses such as strokes, balance, and gait issues without the need for medical examination. Computer vision applications that analyze patient movement, such as pose estimation, help clinicians diagnose patients more quickly and accurately.
Monitoring Disease Progression
The marvels of computer vision don’t just end here, they help us segregate and identify critically ill patients from the mild sickness category. On this basis, it grants permission to send patients to critical screening wards, for instance, patients who were suffering from COVID-19 had a faster respiration rate, primarily due to severe cough and lungs infection.
Atypical breathing patterns in COVID-19 infected patients can be detected through depth cameras based on a deep learning system that allows subdued and accurate screening of patients on a large scale.
Medical Skill Training
CV is not entirely limited to medical diagnosis, instead, it has stretched out to medical skill training as well. Currently, surgeons are not relying on conventional methods of learning surgery through hands-on practice in operation theatre; instead, simulated surgical platforms have proven to be an excellent tool for assessing and training surgical skills.
Trainees are well equipped with simulation technology, which makes them well-versed before entering into the practical field to perform any surgery. It helps them in attaining a proactive assessment and detailed feedback of their traineeship. It gives them an edge in gaining a better understanding of the patients’ safety and cares in the hospital before performing surgery on them.
Computer Vision can also be used to evaluate the quality of the procedure by evaluating activity levels, detecting frantic movement, and analyzing the number of time patients spend in specific places.
Rehabilitation
Stroke survivors and sports injury patients usually go through physical therapy sessions for quick recovery. Physiotherapists encounter the pivotal challenge of bearing supervision costs which put the liability on medical professionals, agency or hospitals.
Now you can take rehabilitation training sessions from the comfort of your home through vision-based applications. They are quite economical. It facilitates every age group to get back to normal life and practice movements that support daily life activities while taking care of physical, mental, and cognitive abilities.
Computer-aided therapy allows human action evaluation which is used to aid patients with at-home training, assist them in performing activities correctly, and mitigate the risk of further injuries.
Conclusion
Doctor’s offices, hospitals, outpatient surgical centers, medical labs, medical research institutions, and other healthcare-related organizations can all benefit from using computer vision solutions for various use cases.
Artificial Intelligence is already being used in the medical field. Now, computer vision is being used in this industry, and it has the potential to enable a variety of applications that could save patients’ lives. More doctors are using AI-powered technology to help them better diagnose their patients, prescribe the best treatments, and track the progression of various diseases.
We hope you will pick and choose the best industry mavens to transform your idea into a mega-hit innovation.