After removing cancer, located at the lymph nodes in the neck, the flow of lymph can be obstructed. This obstruction can cause swelling in the neck due to lymph collecting in the tissue. The current method of measuring neck lymphedema consists of using a measuring tape to measure the circumference of the neck. The change in circumference at different time intervals gives an indication of swelling decreasing/increasing. This method of diagnosing is prone to human errors since the measurement has to be taken exactly at the same position on the neck for each time interval.
By using 3D imaging using the Kinect, a model of the neck can be reconstructed which can be used to conduct measurements on. This is done by taking two depth images (one from the front and one from the back), filter the images, and merge them into one 3D point cloud. This 3D point cloud of the patient's neck is then used to calculate the volume by summing the area of each layer of neck from top to bottom. This method has been tested using a piece of clay with a volume of 60 ml which was stuck to the neck. This resulted in a volume increase of 66 ml compared to no clay, which shows that the method is capable of determining an increase/decrease of swelling and is capable of more.