SEGMENTATION AND EXTRACTION OF TEETH FROM 3D CT IMAGES

  • Aizawa, Mitsuhiro (Dept. of Radiology, Suidobashi Hospital, Tokyo Dental College) ;
  • Sasaki, Keita (Dept. of Radiology, Suidobashi Hospital, Tokyo Dental College) ;
  • Kobayashi, Norio (Dept. of Radiology, Suidobashi Hospital, Tokyo Dental College) ;
  • Yama, Mitsuru (Dept. of Clinical Oral Health Science, Tokyo Dental College) ;
  • Kakizawa, Takashi (Dept. of Clinical Oral Health Science, Tokyo Dental College) ;
  • Nishikawa, Keiichi (Dept. of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Tokyo Dental College) ;
  • Sano, Tsukasa (Dept. of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Tokyo Dental College) ;
  • Murakami, Shinichi (Graduate School of Advanced Science and Technology, Tokyo Denki University)
  • Published : 2009.01.12

Abstract

This paper describes an automatic 3-dimensional (3D) segmentation method for 3D CT (Computed Tomography) images using region growing (RG) and edge detection techniques. Specifically, an augmented RG method in which the contours of regions are extracted by a 3D digital edge detection filter is presented. The feature of this method is the capability of preventing the leakage of regions which is a defect of conventional RG method. Experimental results applied to the extraction of teeth from 3D CT data of jaw bones show that teeth are correctly extracted by the proposed method.

Keywords