Clinical crowns shape reconstruction - An image-based approach

Precise knowledge of the 3D shape of clinical crowns is crucial for the treatment of malocclusion problems as well as several endodontic procedures. While Computed Tomography (CT) would present such information, it is believed that there is no threshold radiation dose below which it is considered safe. In this paper, we propose an image-based approach which allows for the construction of plausible human jaw models in vivo, without ionizing radiation, using fewer sample points in order to reduce the cost and intrusiveness of acquiring models of patients teeth/jaws over time. We assume that human teeth reflectance obeys Wolff-Oren-Nayar model where we experimentally prove that teeth surface obeys the microfacet theory. The inherent relation between the photometric information and the underlying 3D shape is formulated as a statistical model where the coupled effect of illumination and reflectance is modeled using the Helmhotlz Hemispherical Harmonics (HSH)-based irradiance harmonics whereas the Principle Component Regression (PCR) approach is deployed to carry out the estimation of dense 3D shapes. Vis-`a-vis dental applications, the results demonstrate a significant increase in accuracy in favor of the proposed approach where our system is evaluated on a database of 16 jaws.