Snake-Based Segmentation of Teeth from Virtual Dental Casts

During the past years several innovative and technological developments have been made in oral surgery. Today, digitized dental casts are common for simulation and planning of orthodontic interventions. In order to work with these models, knowing the exact position of the teeth is of high importance. In this paper, we present a new method for tooth segmentation with minimal user interaction. At the beginning, an initial estimate for the separating curve between the teeth and the gum is computed and optimized by use of an active contour. The second step calculates the dental arch and the interstices between the teeth. In order to detect each tooth surface exactly, we finally position a snake around the cusp of each tooth.