There has been a remarkable increase in the use of computers in dentistry in the last decade. The major driving force has been the development of computer-assisted design and computer-assisted manufacturing of dental prostheses. With the increased use of implant borne prosthetic devices, determination of spatial relationships between teeth and between teeth and gingival tissues has become increasingly important. In this study we propose the development of an electronic alternative to traditional stone dental casts available to clinicians today.
Specific aims of the proposed research are: 1. To apply laser range finding technology to digitization of stone dental casts for input to computers. 2. To create in the computer memory a 3-D reconstruction of a cast by fusing multiple-view range images of the cast. 3. To design computer algorithms for high resolution stereoscopic display of dental casts in 3-D. 4. To develop software tools for quantitation of a cast and measurement of the shape size, position, and orientation of each tooth and distances and orientations of different teeth with respect to each other. The system developed in this study may be extended to a CAD/CAM system for design and manufacturing of dental prostheses, it can be extended to an educational system for dental training, it can be used to plan dental surgery, and by replacing the laser range scanner proposed here with a more sophisticated hand-held probe, it can be used to construct electronic casts in-vivo without the need of stone casts. The proposed system may also be used to develop a 3-D database of dental structures for interactive applications.
| Goshtasby, A A; Nambala, S; deRijk, W G et al. (1997) A system for digital reconstruction of gypsum dental casts. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 16:664-74 |
