Sara Nicotera

Course: Biomedical Engineering
Date of thesis discussion: 11/2018

3D Face Analysis Method for Soft Tissue Prediction in Maxillofacial Surgery

In this work, we have been investigated how the soft tissue changes after a combined orthognathic surgery using a semi-automatic landmarking method. Patients’ post- and pre- operative 3d hard and soft tissue facial models were realized to obtain the Depth Maps that they were landmarked with appropriate landmarks. The pre- and post-operative soft tissue Depth Maps have been matched, as well as the hard tissue ones. The corresponding landmarks have been linked by a directed arrow to display the direction and the sense of the movement and the displacement magnitude has been measured. A quantitative analysis has been made to quantify the displacement obtaining two angles, azimuth and polar respectively. A statistical analysis has been performed. To validate the research a new patient, subjected to the same surgical treatment, has been used. Two different prediction methods based on the selection of specific features to be compared and surgical operations subdividing the face in a fixed area and a dynamic area have been implemented. We have obtained the predictive soft and hard tissue displacement models and finally the two models have been compared.