A New Method for the Quantification of Breathing

Quantification of the breath flow and nostril dominance reveals internal physiological cycles. There are very few existing methods for unobtrusive monitoring of the breath flow. In this paper we present a new method for the quantification of breath flow and evaluation of the symmetry of breathing through both nostrils. The system utilizes thermal film to visualize the flow of breath and implements image processing techniques to quantify the flow. We present system design and preliminary results from an experiment with 11 subjects. Preliminary results indicate a good correlation between subjective measure of the nostril dominance and two analyzed parameters - ratio of left/right area and average intensity. The proposed method can be used as a diagnostic tool, for stress monitoring, biofeedback techniques, and circadian rhythm analysis.