A Preliminary Investigation Comparing Craniofacial Metric Measurements and 3D Virtual Measurements

Abstract

The development and advancement of new laser scanning techniques enables the capture of 3D imaging which can be quantitatively assessed for use on the human skull. I used a Polhemus Fast Scan Scorpion scanner to scan 8 skulls and evaluated the standard 24 metric measurements in Delta analysis software in comparison to standard metric measurements. The scanned measurements were then compared to the standard metric measurements using the same landmarks. Of the original 48 measurements, 33 (68.75%) fail to reject the null and 10 (20.83%) reject the null with the remaining 5 (10.41%) being unknown due to n=1 because of skull damage. The measurements that proved highly reliable were those associated with specific landmarks, and not those measurements that are based on landmarks and feel and considered arbitrary in this study. This study indicates that the use of the laser scanner can be a useful tool for rapid acquisition of skeletal and anatomical surfaces however, accurate location of landmarks and operator skill are of utmost importance in achieving accurate and reliable results