Automatic Teeth Separation through Searching Teeth Separation Lines and Planes based on Intensity Cost Function Optimization in Maxillofacial CBCT Images

Soyoung Lee, Min Jin Lee, Helen Hong

http://doi.org/10.5626/JOK.2019.46.1.65

In this paper, we propose an automatic teeth separation method based on the intensity cost function which finds optimal teeth separation line in 2D panorama image. It also finds the optimal teeth separation plane considering the spatial information of teeth in 3D maxillofacial CBCT images. First, to observe the overall structure of an individual tooth, the 2D panorama image of the teeth is reconstructed by extracting the teeth arch curve of the crown and root region. Second, the optimal teeth separation lines are searched through the intensity-based cost function in the reconstructed 2D panorama image. Third, to improve the accuracy of teeth separation, the optimal separation planes considering the spatial information are searched through the intensity-based cost function in 3D CBCT images. Experimental results show that the proposed method improves the separation accuracy compared to the comparative method. The average intensity value of the proposed method was reduced by 8.61% compared to the comparative method. The processing time of the proposed method was completed within 30 seconds.