Journal of Dental Research, Vol 65, 428-431, Copyright © 1986 by International & American Associations for Dental Research Online Journals
An image analysis system for the determination of tooth dimensions from study casts: comparison with manual measurements of mesio-distal diameter
A. H. Brook, N. B. Pitts, F. Yau and P. K. Sandar
A first comparison of an image analysis method with classical hand
measurement was made using the mesio-distal diameter data derived by the
simplest image analysis method, the jawview mode. Fifty casts of male Hong
Kong Chinese dental students, mean age 20.4 years, were examined by both
methods. The two techniques gave comparable overall results, the
correlation coefficients generally being greater than 0.9. A combination of
the buccal and occlusal image analysis views gave the best correlation with
hand measurement with a comparable variability for different tooth types.
For certain teeth, particularly posteriors, reproducibility was better
using hand measurement. Optimal weighting of the data from these two
different image analysis views can give an "estimated hand measurement"
value. Further development of the method to deal with differing
orientations of teeth is possible.
