Detection of jaw orthogonal plane and dental arch curve from cone beam CT images

This research focuses on detecting the orthogonal plane to the jaw and the dental arch curve on this plane so that high-quality panoramic images can be reconstructed from cone beam CT images.

The movement trajectory of panoramic reconstruction, known as the dental arch curve, determines the quality of the reconstructed panoramic image. In traditional methods, the dental arch curve is detected on 1 transversal slice using interpolation methods. However, these methods may fail to capture the actual dental arch since the jaw is not usually perpendicular to the transversal slice and the interpolation methods tend to ignore local anatomical information of the jaw and teeth. To improve detection of the actual dental arch, we define the jaw orthogonal plane by establishing a relationship between the plane variables and the jaw's left-to-right and the anterior-and-posterior tilts. On this plane, the dental arch curve is first initialized and then moved to match the actual dental arch.

Experimental results demonstrate that our method accurately detects dental arch curves. Panoramic images reconstructed using these curves effectively display the true anatomical features of the jaw and teeth with less distortion compared to those reconstructed by traditional methods.

Our detected dental arch curve on the jaw orthogonal plane is more accurately located in the middle of the jaw and teeth. Anatomic information of the jaw and teeth around the detected dental curve is rightly employed to reconstruct high-quality panoramic images.