Development of a computerized three-dimension system for displaying and analyzing mandibular helical axis pathways / 生物医学工程学杂志

ABSTRACT

This paper is aimed to develop a computerized three dimensional system for displaying and analyzing mandibular helical axis pathways. Mandibular movements were recorded using a six-degrees-of-freedom ultrasonic jaw movement recording device. The three-dimensional digital models of the midface and the mandible were reconstructed and segmented from CT skull images. The digital models were then transformed to the coordinate system of mandibular motion data by using an optical measuring system. The system was programmed on the base of the Visualization ToolKit and Open Scene Graphics Library. According to the motion data, transformation matrices were calculated to simulate mandibular movements. Meanwhile, mandibular helical axis pathways were calculated and displayed three dimensionally by means of an eigenvalues method. The following parameters of mandibular helical axis were calculated the rotation around instantaneous helical axis, the translation along it, its spatial orientation, its position and distance relative to any special reference point. These parameters could be exported to describe comprehensively the whole mandiblular movements. It could be concluded that our system would contribute to the study of mandiblular helical axis pathways.