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3D reconstruction of dental specimens from 2D histological images and microCT-scans.

Rahimi A, Keilig L, Bendels G, Klein R, Buzug TM, Abdelgader I, Abboud M, Bourauel C

University of Bonn, Department of Orthodontics, Welschnonnenstr.17, 53111, Bonn, Germany.

Direct comparison of experimental and theoretical results in biomechanical studies requires a careful reconstruction of specimen surfaces to achieve a satisfactory congruence for validation. In this paper a semi-automatic approach is described to reconstruct triangular boundary representations from images originating from, either histological sections or microCT-, CT- or MRI-data, respectively. In a user-guided first step, planar 2D contours were extracted for every material of interest, using image segmentation techniques. In a second step, standard 2D triangulation algorithms were used to derive high quality mesh representations of the underlying surfaces. This was accomplished by converting the 2D meshes into 3D meshes by a novel lifting procedure. The meshes can be imported as is into finite element programme packages such as Marc/Mentat or COSMOS/M. Accuracy and feasibility of the algorithm is demonstrated by reconstructing several specimens as examples and comparing simulated results with available measurements performed on the original objects.

Published 10 October 2005 in Comput Methods Biomech Biomed Engin, 8(3): 167-76.
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