Analyizing Color Imaging Failure on Consumer Cameras

There are currently many efforts to use consumer-grade cameras for home-based health and wellness monitoring. Such applications rely on users to use their personal cameras to capture images for analysis in a home environment. When color is a primary feature for diagnostic algorithms, the camera requires color calibration to ensure accurate color measurements. Given the importance of such diagnostic tests for the users' health and well-being, it is important to understand the conditions in which color calibration may fail. To this end, we analyzed a wide range of camera sensors and environmental lighting to determine (1): how often color calibration failure is likely to occur; and (2) the underlying reasons for failure. Our analysis shows that in well-lit environments, it is rare to encounter a camera sensor and lighting condition combination that results in color imaging failure. Moreover, when color imaging does fail, the cause is almost always attributed to spectral poor environmental lighting and not the camera sensor. We believe this finding is useful for scientists and engineers developing color-based applications with consumer-grade cameras.