Non-contact breathing activity monitoring and analyzing through thermal and CO2 imaging

A method for analyzing pulmonological function, the method comprising, by a computing device:

• obtaining, using a first imaging device, a thermal image of an exhale flow of a subject;
• isolating pulmonological behavior of the subject by identifying and tracking exhale fluid dynamics exhibited by pixel intensity values corresponding to CO2 gas flow behaviors collected by the first imaging device;
• and
• estimating fluid flow characteristics of the exhale behavior from the pixel intensity values, wherein the fluid flow characteristics are identified independently of exact pixel intensity values and characterized by changes of apparent flow measurements to reconstruct 4D models of exhale episodes.

A system comprising:

• a thermal camera to take an image of an exhale of a patient;
• a communications interface communicably coupled to the thermal camera to receive the image;
• a processor;
• a memory having instructions stored thereon that when executed by the processor cause the processor to generate a representation of the exhale of the patient and extract metrics for respiratory analysis, wherein the metrics include the reconstruction of exhale flows to obtain tidal volume estimates, the identification of the separation between nose and mouth exhale flows to measure nose/mouth distribution, and both the velocity and strength of exhale flows.