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These pink tiles may look like colour swatches you'd use if you were decorating your house, but they are in fact something far more gruesome; human skin.

The fleshy patchwork is being used by doctors to see if a wound is healing in the right way and could, in the future, be used by law enforcement agencies to identify criminals.

The top set of photos are the skin from the inside of different people's forearms, while the bottom set shows the same skin enhanced with false colour.

The top set of photos are the skin from the inside of different people's forearms, while the bottom set shows the same skin enhanced with false colour. While both sets show the same sample of skin, the bottom image reveals just how much people's skin reflects electromagnetic waves differently

While both sets show the same sample of skin, the bottom image reveals differences in how human tissue reflects electromagnetic waves.

Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist) in Maryland are gathering this skin data to develop reference standards for how quickly skin can heal.

The images were taken using hyper-spectral imaging which captures light from the ultraviolet to the infrared.

According to Nist researcher David Allen, being sensitive to so many wavelengths means hyper spectral imagers can see many different things that humans can't see, including the amount of oxygen in human tissues, an indicator of healing.

Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist) in Maryland are gathering skin data to develop reference standards for how quickly skin can heal

'The potential of the technology has been proven, but the problem is that researchers are simply lacking a way to assure consistent results between labs,' said Dr Allen.

'Standards development has itself been hindered by a lack of human skin reflectance data, especially in the ultraviolet and short-wave infrared.'

Catherine Cooksey, the project leader for the programme that establishes skin standards, says that before we delve into what diseased tissue looks like hyper spectrally, we need to know what so-called 'normal' tissue looks like.

The initial Nist studies used 28 volunteer test subjects. The data collected included a photograph of the test area on the subject's forearm and three reflectance measurements of the test area.

Once they collect enough data, the researchers can feed it into Hyperspectral Image Projector, a device that shows tissue in various stages of repair.

Medical imaging technicians can then use these 'digital tissue phantoms' to test their imagers' ability to distinguish among and detect different tissue types and conditions.

'Skin reflectance varies due to skin pigmentation, tissue density, lipid content and blood volume changes,' said Dr Cooksey.

'And few, if any, studies of skin reflectance have been done with an estimated measurement uncertainty that is traceable to Nist or any other national metrology institute.

'We need good data from a wide variety of sources, and for that we need the help of our colleagues in the community.'

The fleshy patchwork is currently being used by doctors tin the U.S to see if a wound is healing in the right way