Patent ID: 7596253

Claim:
A method for obtaining an image of tooth tissue using a processing apparatus having a display, to perform steps comprising: directing incident light toward a tooth; obtaining fluorescence image data from a fluorescent emission excited by the incident light; obtaining, from back-scattered light, back-scattered reflectance image data from the tooth tissue; processing the fluorescence image data to generate a processed fluorescence image data and processing the reflectance image data to generate a processed reflectance image data, the processing of the fluorescence and reflectance image data being effective for all pixels to cause fluorescence values to equal or exceed corresponding reflectance values; and subtracting the processed reflectance image data from the processed fluorescence image data for each pixel to form an enhanced image of the tooth tissue wherein contrast between intensity values for pixels in a carious region and intensity values for pixels in a sound region is accentuated for display and recognition.