[3D displays for craniofacial surgery]

3D visualisation from tomographic image sequences has turned out to be a useful addition to diagnosis and surgical planning in craniofacial surgery. However, its clinical use still suffers from the very large variety of different methods and parameters from which the surgeon may choose. This is true not only of the data acquisition but also for of documentation of the results. Furthermore, there is no standardisation of procedures according to classes of malformations. This paper presents a systematic investigation of these problems. It proposes a standardisation of craniofacial malformations and describes an optimisation of the procedure of 3D visualisation. The procedure described has become a standard tool for craniofacial surgery in our hospital.