Oral implant treatment planning in a virtual reality environment

A system for three-dimensional oral implant treatment planning is presented. Virtual reality technologies are used in order to improve the human image interpretation and planning performance. The methods described are based on computer tomography (CT) data of the mandible and of the maxilla. A novel approach to volume rendering and voxel based modelling of implants is introduced which allows interactive three-dimensional manipulation of the anatomic model and real-time manipulation of virtual implants. A spline-based reconstruction method is described to assess the implant site in a clinically oriented view with regard to bone structures and angulation. Two parameters are deduced which represent the bone properties at the surface of implants. While an implant is navigated with six degrees of freedom, these parameters are acoustically rendered which is a novel approach to exploration of spatial bone properties in a CT data set.