Study of bone implants based on 3D images

Abstract

New medical input technologies together with computer graphics modelling and visualization software have opened a new track for biomedical sciences: the so-called in-silice experimentation, in which analysis and measurements are done on computer graphics models constructed on the basis of medical images, complementing the traditional in-vivo and in-vitro experimental methods. In this paper, we describe an in-silice experiment to evaluate bio-implants for bone regeneration: data capture and graphical algorithms. The results show that computer graphics models can give similar measurements than the traditional methods using the same precision with additional advantages such as the capability of choosing the best, or even several, plane orientations to do the study. There are also the intrinsic advantages of animal sacrifices reduction and sample preservation.