Accuracy and Benefits of 3D Bone Surface Modelling: A Comparison of Two Methods of Surface Data Acquisition Reconstructed by Laser Scanning and Computed Tomography Outputs

The aim of this study is to compare two different methods of frontal bone surface model acquisition. Three dimensional models acquired by laser scanning were compared with models of the same bones acquired by virtual replicas reconstructed from a sequence of computed tomography (CT) images. The influence of volumetric CT data processing (namely thresholding), which immediately preceded the generation of the three-dimensional surface model, was also considered and explored in detail in one sample. Despite identifying certain areas where both models showed deviations across all samples, their conformity can be generally classified as satisfactory, and the differences can be regarded as minimal. The average deviation of registered surface models was 0.27 mm for 90% of the data, and its value was therefore very close to the resolution of the laser scanner used

Accuracy and Benefits of 3D Bone Surface Modelling: A Comparison of Two Methods of Surface Data Acquisition Reconstructed by Laser Scanning and Computed Tomography Outputs

The aim of this study is to compare two different methods of frontal bone surface model acquisition. Three dimensional models acquired by laser scanning were compared with models of the same bones acquired by virtual replicas reconstructed from a sequence of computed tomography (CT) images. The influence of volumetric CT data processing (namely thresholding), which immediately preceded the generation of the three-dimensional surface model, was also considered and explored in detail in one sample. Despite identifying certain areas where both models showed deviations across all samples, their conformity can be generally classified as satisfactory, and the differences can be regarded as minimal. The average deviation of registered surface models was 0.27 mm for 90% of the data, and its value was therefore very close to the resolution of the laser scanner used

Simulation of facial growth based on longitudinal data: Age progression and age regression between 7 and 17 years of age using 3D surface data.

Modelling of the development of facial morphology during childhood and adolescence is highly useful in forensic and biomedical practice. However, most studies in this area fail to capture the essence of the face as a three-dimensional structure. The main aims of our present study were (1) to construct ageing trajectories for the female and male face between 7 and 17 years of age and (2) to propose a three-dimensional age progression (age -regression) system focused on real growth-related facial changes. Our approach was based on an assessment of a total of 522 three-dimensional (3D) facial scans of Czech children (39 boys, 48 girls) that were longitudinally studied between the ages of 7 to 12 and 12 to 17 years. Facial surface scans were obtained using a Vectra-3D scanner and evaluated using geometric morphometric methods (CPD-DCA, PCA, Hotelling's T2 tests). We observed very similar growth rates between 7 and 10 years in both sexes, followed by an increase in growth velocity in both sexes, with maxima between 11 and 12 years in girls and 11 to 13 years in boys, which are connected with the different timing of the onset of puberty. Based on these partly different ageing trajectories for girls and boys, we simulated the effects of age progression (age regression) on facial scans. In girls, the mean error was 1.81 mm at 12 years and 1.7 mm at 17 years. In boys, the prediction system was slightly less successful: 2.0 mm at 12 years and 1.94 mm at 17 years. The areas with the greatest deviations between predicted and real facial morphology were not important for facial recognition. Changes of body mass index percentiles in children throughout the observation period had no significant influence on the accuracy of the age progression models for both sexes

Sexual Dimorphism of the Human Tibia through Time: Insights into Shape Variation Using a Surface-Based Approach.

In this paper we present a three-dimensional (3D) morphometrical assessment of human tibia sexual dimorphism based on whole bone digital representation. To detect shape-size and shape differences between sexes, we used geometric morphometric tools and colour-coded surface deviation maps. The surface-based methodology enabled analysis of sexually dimorphic features throughout the shaft and articular ends of the tibia. The overall study dataset consisted of 183 3D models of adult tibiae from three Czech population subsets, dating to the early medieval (9-10th century) (N = 65), early 20th century (N = 61) and 21st-century (N = 57). The time gap between the chronologically most distant and contemporary datasets was more than 1200 years. The results showed that, in all three datasets, sexual dimorphism was pronounced. There were some sex-dimorphic characteristics common to all three samples, such as tuberosity protrusion, anteriorly bowed shaft and relatively larger articular ends in males. Diachronic comparisons also revealed substantial shape variation related to the most dimorphic area. Male/female distinctions showed a consistent temporal trend regarding the location of dimorphic areas (shifting distally with time), while the maximal deviation between male and female digitized surfaces fluctuated and reached the lowest level in the 21st-century sample. Sex determination on a whole-surface basis yielded the lowest return of correct sex assignment in the 20th-century group, which represented the lowest socioeconomic status. The temporal variation could be attributed to changes in living conditions, the decreasing lower limb loading/labour division in the last 12 centuries having the greatest effect. Overall, the results showed that a surface-based approach is successful for analysing complex long bone geometry

Morphometric analysis of mesh asymmetry

New techniques of capturing shape geometry for the purpose of studying asymmetry in biological objects bring the need to develop new methods of analyzing such data. In this paper we propose a method of mesh asymmetry analysis and decomposition intended for use in geometric morphometry. In geometric morphometry the individual bilateral asymmetry is captured by aligning a specimen with its mirror image and analyzing the difference. This involves the construction of a dense correspondence mapping between the meshes. We tested our algorithm on real data consisting of a sample of 102 human faces as well as on artificially altered meshes to successfully prove its validity. The resulting algorithm is an important methodological improvement which has a potential to be widely used in a wide variety of morphological studies

Exocranial surfaces for sex assessment of the human cranium

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