Synthesizing dental radiographs for human identification
Journal article, 2007

The task of identifying human remains based on dental comparisons of post mortem (PM) and ante mortem (AM) radiographs is labor-intensive, subjective, and has several drawbacks, including: inherently poor image quality, difficulty matching the viewing angles in PM radiographs to those taken AM, and the fact that the state of the dental remains may entirely preclude the possibility of obtaining certain types of radiographs PM. The aim of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of using radiograph-like images reconstructed from PM x-ray computed tomography (CT) data to overcome the shortcomings of conventional radiographic comparison. Algorithms for computer synthesis of panoramic, periapical, and bitewing images are presented. The algorithms were evaluated with data from clinical examinations of two persons. The results demonstrate the efficacy of the CT-based approach and that, in comparison with conventional radiographs, the synthesized images exhibit minimal geometric distortion, reduced blurring, and reduced superimposition of oral structures.

computed tomography

teeth

dental comparison

radiograph

system

ct

forensic identification

x-ray images

radon transform

Author

S. Tohnak

Andrew Mehnert

Chalmers, Signals and Systems

M. Mahoney

S. Crozier

Journal of Dental Research

0022-0345 (ISSN) 15440591 (eISSN)

Vol. 86 11 1057-1062

Subject Categories

Dentistry

Computer Vision and Robotics (Autonomous Systems)

Areas of Advance

Life Science Engineering (2010-2018)

More information

Created

10/7/2017