A single tooth segmentation using structural orientations and statistical textures

Segmentation of a single tooth is important for extracting tooth´s features from x-ray dental images. PCA-stacked Gabor is a method that can help in enhancement of more details of tooth texture and bone. The orientation of Gabor banks correspond to the angle of tooth´s orientation. In this paper, we propose a segmentation method based on an estimation of the angle of tooth´s orientation in the image. The intensity projection and peak detection method are used in PCA-stacked Gabor method in order to improve the detail of tooth texture and bone. The tooth´s contour is then segmented using active contour method without edge. In the experimental results, average mean square error (AMSE) is reduced to 11.763 compared active contour without edge (ACWE) method of 15.762 and the conventional method of 12.296, respectively.