Combining biometric and symbolic models for customised, automated prosthesis design

In a previous paper [Artif. Intell. Med. 5 (1993) 431] we described RaPiD, a knowledge-based system for designing dental prostheses. The present paper discusses how RaPiD has been extended using techniques from computer vision and logic grammars. The first employs point distribution and active shape models (ASMs) to determine dentition from images of casts of patient’s jaws. This enables a design to be customised to, and visualised against, an image of a patient’s dentition. The second is based on the notion of a path grammar, a form of logic grammar, to generate a path linking an ordered sequence of subcomponents. The shape of an important and complex prosthesis component can be automatically seeded in this fashion. Combining these models now substantially automates the design process, beginning with a photograph of a dental cast and ending with an annotated and validated design diagram ready to guide manufacture.