2017 IEEE 8th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2017), 4 - 5 August 2017, Shah Alam,
Malaysia
Skin Disease Recognition Using Texture Analysis
Md. Nazrul Islam1 (Senior Member IEEE), Jaime Gallardo-Alvarado2, Masyitah Abu1, Nurfazlyna Aneem Salman1,
Sahanah a/p Pandu Rengan1 and Sakina Said1
1
Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Tecnológico de Celaya, TecNM, 38010 Celaya, GTO, México
1
E-mail: nazrul.02@gmail.com (Or) nazrul@ums.edu.my
Abstract — This research describes skin disease
recognition by using neural network which based on the
texture analysis. There are many skin diseases which have
a lot of similarities in their symptoms, such as Measles
(rubeola), German measles (rubella), and Chickenpox etc.
In general, these diseases have similarities in pattern of
infection and symptoms such as redness and rash.
Diagnosis and recognition of skin disease take a very long
term process because it requires patient’s history, physical
examination and proper laboratory diagnostic tests. Not
only that, it also requires large number of features clinical
as well as histopathological for analysis and to provide
further treatment. The disease diagnosis and recognition
becomes difficult as the complexity and number of features
of the disease increases. Hence, a computer aided diagnosis
and recognition system is introduced. Computer algorithm
which contains few steps that involves image processing,
image feature extraction and classification of data have
been implemented with the help of classifier such as
artificial neural network (ANN). The ANN can learn
patterns of symptoms of particular diseases and provides
faster diagnosis and recognition than a human physician.
Thus, the patients can do the treatment for the skin disease
faced immediately based on the symptoms detected.
Keywords—skin disease; classification by NN; segmentation;
GLCM features;
I. INTRODUCTION
Biggest organ of human is a skin, which mass of it is
approximately around 4 kg to 5 kg. The skin have the surface
area of about 1.2 m2 – 2.2 m2. It has many functions and
especially it is one of the most essential organ for human being.
Among the uses and functions of the skin are protecting the
body, adjusting the temperature of the body and used for the
sense of touch as well. The skin itself can be separated into
three different layers which are epidermis, dermis and
subcutaneous. The two layers that make up the human skin is
known as epidermis. Meanwhile, dermis is the thick layer of
living tissues below the epidermis that forms the true skin and
contains a lot of important structures such as blood capillaries,
nerve endings, sweat glands, hair follicles and other structures
[1].
The appearance of human skin is hard to be model and
analyze due to its complex surface with fine scale geometry.
The complexity of the uneven edge, tone, presence of the hair
978-1-5386-0380-2/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
and other mitigating features caused the skin difficult to be
analyze. Its structure consists of Melanin and hemoglobin
pigments in the structure. Thus, slight variation of pigment
structure will cause the colour of the skin change. Human skin
have some different kinds of textures which diseased skin can
be differentiate between the textures of the healthy skin. It is
very important to take a really good care of the skin care. This
is because, if the skin diseases are not treated earlier, it might
leads to the spreading of the infection from one part of the
body to the other parts of the body. Not only that, it might also
leads to the spreading of the infection to the people
surrounding. A lot of observations can be made regarding the
nature of the skin just by analyzing the skin texture and the
colour of the skin. In order to design the system for the
recognition of the skin disease, there are a few steps that must
be taken which are including image processing, segmentation
of the image, image feature extraction and data classification
using neural network. The most difficult part in designing the
skin disease recognition system is to identify the disease itself.
This difficulty is due to the huge similarities between different
classes.
In addition, the common symptoms shared by these skin
disease leads to the confusion in detecting and recognizing the
exact type of skin disease faced by the patients. There are many
papers that describe the applications of artificial neural network
in medical decision making. A lot of research also has been
made and there are plenty methodologies have been propose in
order to analyze and recognize textures of the skin disease. A
scheme for automated detection of three classes of skin
diseases by analyzing textures and obtained from a collection
of medical images based on Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix
(GLCM). In order to give more efficient recognition accuracy
of the skin disease an approach relied on both skin color and
texture features (features derived from the GLCM). Texture
analysis is one of the most important aspects of human vision
which can classify between surfaces and objects. In the
computer vision techniques provided surface texture to
distinguish and recognize objects based on visual patterns of
objects. A GLCM is a popular statistical method for texture
analysis and it indicates the probability of object’s patterns.
A. Classifying Method
Human skin is a standout amongst the most troublesome
surface to analyze because of its unpredictability of uneven
edge, tone, presence of hair and other mitigating feature. Skin
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 2017 IEEE 8th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2017), 4 - 5 August 2017, Shah Alam, Malaysia
is the surface of the body having some texture; unhealthy skin
has variety in the texture from healthy skin malignant
melanoma at present records for a third most frequency type
of skin disease and 79% of skin cancer death. The rate of
harmful melanoma in fair-skinned patients has increased
histrionically in most parts of the world in the course of recent
decades.
In Europe, it's been reported that harmful melanoma
frequency is increase by 5% consistently and it is responsible
for 91% of skin tumor death. In an offered to enhancing early
identification, various symptomatic agendas and principles
have been proposed, for example, Seven Point Checklist and
ABCDE: Asymmetry, Border, Color, Diameter, Evolution
agenda. These standards and agendas indicate visual elements
related with dangerous injury manifestations [3]. This paper,
built up a diagnosis scheme for dermoscopic pictures, getting
to the Asymmetry (A), Border (B), Color (C), and Diameter
(D) of various picture structures. This ABCD run turned into
the standard in dermoscopy for arranging PSL into generous,
suspicious or harmful moles (melanoma). Be that as it may,
dermoscopic diagnosis is regularly complex and subjective, in
this manner related with poor reproducibility and low
precision particularly among naiveté dermatologist, as the
exactness of specialists is 65-84%. Likewise, visual
understandings of these components by dermatologist have so
far proven to be difficult task.
Priyanka et al [2] developed a system which utilizes for the
classification of Malignant Melanoma from other different
skin disease are Digital Image Processing Techniques and
Artificial Neural Networks. Dermoscopic pictures were
gathered and different Image processing methods were
applied. With the help of segmentation the cancerous region is
isolated from healthy skin. 2-D Wavelet Transform is utilized
for feature extraction from segmented pictures. In light of the
feature, the pictures were named Cancerous and Non-
cancerous. In diagnosis of skin disease using image processing
the important task is to identify the skin based on the
histogram and mixture Gaussian models in skin detection and
it is proved histogram models are predominant as far as
accuracy and computational cost [4]. Alongside colour, texture
feature are likewise assume imperative part in grouping of
skin disease. Authors [5] proposed system to detect disease
states of human skin by examining skin surface pictures using
a set of normalized symmetrical Grey Level Co-occurrence
Matrices. There was system developed for psoirasis detection
using colour and texture feature. To classify different disease
from erythemato-squamouss class a system will be design by
using artificial neural network and in which melanin and
hemoglobin pigment content are extract from a single skin
color picture by independent component analysis (ICA). In
this system, the scattering in the skin is demonstrated in a
simple linear form in the optical area in which reverse optical
scattering is performed by simple inverse matrix operation.
There was a plan for automatic recognition of three classes of
skin disease by analyses texture acquired from an
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accumulation of medicinal pictures, using feature based on
Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and using neural
network as classifiers [6]. Another method in which the spatial
distribution of pigment in foliage which lead to color variety
are isolated by independent component analysis (ICA) from a
single leaf color picture. Texture analysis and estimations in
light of a measurable way to deal with the example
acknowledgment are proposed and contrasts in color and
coarseness of skin are quantitatively. This approach depended
on both skin color and texture feature (highlights gotten from
the GLCM) to give a more efficient recognition accuracy of
skin maladies. Feed forward neural network were used to
classify input pictures to be psoriasis infected or non-psoriasis
infected. A fast fixed-point type algorithm that is capable for
isolating complex valued, linearly mixed source signals is
exhibited and it is guaranteed to be robust against outlier and
computationally simple. There are a way to deal with feature
extraction which contain picture textural qualities, for
example, homogeneity, grey tone linear conditions, contrast,
number and nature of boundaries present and the complexity
of the picture. The Run Length feature to classify the focal
lesion in ultrasound live pictures. The general classify
accuracy using neural networks was observed to be 83%.
Eduardo et al review the non-linear Independent Component
Analysis and its applications to visually impaired source
separation.
Y. P. Gowramma et al. [4] suggested to investigate and
recognize textures in a computerized form and a
computational approach for analysing visible texture by
localizing spatial changes in the frequency, orientation, or
phase of the texture using 2-D. Data extract from the Curve
lets responds are used to recognize phase discontinuities inside
a texture. A statistical and structural technique to model
texture construct designs based on the symmetric Gray Level
Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM). Coarseness is the measure of
granularity of a photo, or typical size of area that have a
comparative force, complexity is the measure of clarity of the
surfaces influenced by the utilization of confirming highly
contrasting powers, directionality is the measure of headings
of the dark esteems inside the photo. The standard focal point
on surface based arrangement has been decided the interior
pixel structure of picture district since overall these methods
neglect to recognize convoluted edges and minimal restricted
component. A framework proposed by author which melanin
and hemoglobin shade substance is extricated from a solitary
skin shading picture by free part investigation [6]. There are
numerous systems that were planned to examine ailments as
by and large however a couple for skin sicknesses
determination; MYCIN is a decent framework for diagnosing
bacterial maladies. These Expert Systems are specific
impressive specialist in one specific infections, yet the ebb and
flow proposed master framework is invested huge energy in
the examination of nine skin maladies [7].
 2017 IEEE 8th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2017), 4 - 5 August 2017, Shah Alam, Malaysia
B. Type of Skin Disease
There are a couple kind of sickness that can be described as
skin infection at first is Measles (rubeola). This is a malady that
made by diseases transmitted by aerosolized respiratory dabs
and by direct contact. The contamination period of measles
begins with forth time span in 10 – 14 days. In the midst of this
period, the signs have not been seen. Towards the complete of
the incubating time period, patients make prodromal signs of
high fever, hack, coryza (runny nose) and conjunctivitis.
Patients who have not been inoculated, light blue white spot
inside mouth zone can be found. This spot frequently called as
Koplik's spot. The normal rash at first appears after another 3 -
4 days, as often as possible joined by higher fever. The rashes
are at first found on the face and behind the ears and
subsequently spread all through the body. The spread of rashes
is joined by fever down and vanishing of prodromal signs. The
spread rashes generally turn dim hued and after that vanish.
Perplexities of measles may join detachment of the guts, ear
ailments, bronchitis, pneumonia, and encephalitis [8].
Second skin malady is German measles (rubella) is
achieved by a disease not the same as measles contamination
and has signs which are not as extraordinary as measles. In
children, German measles impacts the skin and lymph center
points. The signs appear for 2 – 3 days after the second week
since the symptoms of the viral sick. The indications sooner or
later feel lighter than the measles. The ailment regularly
begins with a delicate fever, distress and smooth
conjunctivitis. Indications, for instance, headache, runny nose
and loss of appetite may in like manner be found. Those
symptoms appear before the nearness of rashes that spread
from the face all through the body. The rash trademark
resembles the rash of measles. This sickness is depicted by
joint misery and lymph center points that make the neck and
ear swollen since the ailment began.
The third ailment is Chickenpox, which is an extraordinary
overwhelming disease brought on by varicella zoster
contamination (VZV). The nearness of the rashes of this
illness can be joined by flu like symptoms. The non-specific
signs for this ailment are smooth fever, headache, uneasiness,
sore throat, free entrails and loss of craving. These symptoms
appear inside a concise traverse. The persisted fever may be
higher when bother happens. The rash of this disease is more
prominent than whatever different sickness. The rash begins as
various minimal red thumps that look like pimples or
frightening little creature snack, regularly not as much as a
fourth of an inch wide. They appear in items more than 2 to 4
days and frame into thin-walled annoys stacked with fluid.
The annoy dividers break, leaving open injuries, which finally
outside over to twist up perceptibly dry, darker scabs. The red
thumps, annoy and outside layer can appear in the meantime
and keeps on appearing in two or three days. The rashes
spread from the face to the entire body and can be centered
around the neck. Specific rash of this affliction appears to be
simply if the patient has not been vaccinated. Ensuing to being
inoculated, the contamination can come back with a non-
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specific rash. That is the time when the signs are difficult to
perceive from the reactions of measles [9].
A multi-instance learning framework is described to solve the
problem of skin biopsy image features recognition and a skin
surface images were mostly based on color features extraction.
They are unable to be apply directly for skin biopsy image
features recognition because biopsy have inner structures with
different textures. Therefore, texture feature extraction
methods are used to express each region as a vectorial
expression [10].
The hand tremor is one of the most common motion disorders
of human caused by various neurological diseases. The
diagnostic procedures for tremor determination and
examinations are not available that can accurately
indicate whether tremors are present in a patient’s. In
this regards, Authors developed a computational method
based on machine learning which can automatically
detect hand tremors from a video of a patient and the
main challenge in tremor detection is that motion is very
subtle, and the signature of the motion can vary from
patient to patient [11, 12].
II. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
The proposed methodology involves two sections: Image
Processing and Classification. Figure 1 represents the overview
of the system in block diagram. The method involves the
following steps: Image acquisition, Pre-Processing,
Segmentation, Feature Extraction, Classification using neural
network and finally decision phase to evaluate either the skin is
affected with disease or not.
Input Image Pre-Processing Segmentation
Classification
Decision Feature Extraction
by NN
Diseased Skin Healthy Skin
Fig. 1: Block Diagram of Skin Disease Classification System
A. Input Image
Input image is obtained through the process of image
acquisition. The process involves either capturing an image
from a camera or retrieving images directly from image
database. Image acquisition in image processing is the
beginning step in the workflow sequence thus, without an
image, no further process is possible.
B. Pre-processing
The pre-processing is a modification of the image data that
eliminates unwanted distortions or enhances image features to
ease further processing. First, the image is resized to a uniform
scale of 360x360 so that it supports feature classification with
 2017 IEEE 8th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2017), 4 - 5 August 2017, Shah Alam, Malaysia

accuracy. The images are then converted from RGB (Red, initialized at the beginning of training. The whole process of
Green, and Blue) to grayscale. To improve the image quality training will continues until error is zero.
for better performance during segmentation, contrast
enhancement is being applied. Sometimes, hairs and pigments III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
which existed in some of the images to be used would confuse
the analysis. Therefore, all of the unwanted elements or noise Images from the database of Dermnet Skin disease atlas were
would be eliminated by median filtering. retrieved and used as input images. Three common skin
diseases: Eczema, Impetigo and Psoriasis were considered for
C. Segmentation the skin disease classification system. Fig. 2 shows the
sample images used as input images.
Segmentation of image is the process of subdividing a
digital image into its constituent parts or multiple segments
(sets of different pixels). This process is important in order to
simplify an image into something that is more meaningful and
easier to analyze. In terms of skin disease classification, the
affected region in the image is being segmented. In another Eczema
word, image segmentation is the process of assigning a label to
every pixel in an image such that each pixel with the same
label share certain visual characteristics, this process used
Maximum Entropy Thresholding method for segmentation.

D. Feature Extraction Impetigo

To differentiate between each input patterns, feature
extraction is used. It is a very crucial step that greatly
influences the performance of the classifier. The features
selection is based on texture analysis using Grey Level Co-
occurrence Matrix (GLCM). GLCM is a powerful tool for
image feature extraction that maps the grey level co-occurrence
probabilities based on spatial relations of pixels in different Psoriasis
angular directions. The features extracted from GLCM consist
of Energy, Correlation, Homogeneity and Contrast:
(i) Energy: Ranges from 0 and 1. It returns the sum of
squared elements in the GLCM. For a constant image,
energy is 1.
Fig. 2: Sample of Skin Disease Images
(ii) Correlation: 1 or -1 for a perfectly positively or The converted gray scale, contrast enhanced and median
negatively correlated image. filtered sample images are presented in Fig. 3. Then,
(iii) Contrast: Returns a measure of the intensity contrast suspicious regions of the pre-processed skin images are
between a pixel and its neighbor over the whole image. segmented using Maximum Entropy Thresholding to separate
the diseased skin from healthy skin. Fig. 4 represents the
(iv) Homogeneity: The values range from 0 to 1. Returns a sample of diseased and healthy skin segmented images
value that measures the closeness of the distribution of respectively.
elements in the GLCM to the GLCM diagonal.
Homogeneity is 1 for a diagonal GLCM.
Input Grayscale Contrast Median
E. Classification Image Image Enhancement Filtered
The segmented image is classified using neural network
classifier. In this proposed system, a feed forward multilayer
network consists of Input layer, Hidden layer and Output layer
is used. Meanwhile, for training, Back propagation (BPN)
algorithm is used. The hidden layer and output layer works in
adjusting weights value based on the error output in Fig. 3: Pre-Processed Sample Images
classification of different features. In BPN algorithm, signal
flow will be in forward direction. An error signal is generated
if both outputs do not match each time the output of the
network being compared with desired output. In order to
reduce the error, this error signal is propagated backwards and
weights are adjusted at the middle layer. In this BPN algorithm,
the hidden layer and output layer weights are randomly
Fig. 4: Sample of Segmented Images

147
 2017 IEEE 8th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2017), 4 - 5 August 2017, Shah Alam, Malaysia
GLCM features were used for feature extraction and neural
network for classification. After segmentation, GLCM
features are extracted for each sample image as given in Table
1. Contrast, Correlation, Energy and Homogeneity are the
features selected as input fed for the input layer of neural
network.
Table 1: Extracted Features of Sample Images
Features Affected Skin Healthy
Skin
Contrast 4.1819 7.7104
Correlation 0.8829 0.6676
Energy 0.4400 0.3940
Homogeneity 0.9253 0.8623
With these set of texture features, the training and the
classification is carried out. The extracted features are
divided into training and testing dataset, where 50% of
the images from each group are used to train the system
and the remaining images serves as the testing set. The
output ‘0’ represent healthy skin and ‘1’ represent skin
that affected by disease. The classification of the skin
disease is represented in confusion matrix as given in Fig.
5 whereby 12 sample images were correctly classified and
3 sample of images were misclassified. Finally, the
performance of the ANN classifier is analyzed in terms of
accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The overall
performance of the system is calculated in terms of 80%
accuracy, 71.4% of sensitivity and 87.5% of specificity.
Fig. 5: All Confusion Matrix
IV. CONCLUSION
From the results over, the accompanying conclusions can be
determined that utilizing neural system determination of skin
illnesses are possible and achievable through the utilization of
highlight extraction, very much characterized division and
arrangement method. While numerous triumphs has been
148
recorded in the momentum progresses in mechanization of
therapeutic determination, this review has a tendency to boost
the extensive accessibility of pervasive gadgets and elicitation
of past skin sicknesses picture set towards giving practical,
less demanding and quicker finding for underserved ranges.
Be that as it may, the future degree will be founded on
creating calculations to recognize different maladies, to
enhance the general productivity and furthermore to
additionally lessen the computational time.
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