Novel Image-Based 3D Reconstruction of the Human Jaw using Shape from Shading and Feature Descriptors

In this paper, we propose a novel approach for 3D surface reconstruction of the human jaw. Due to the difficulties of setting up a data acquisition system inside the mouth, we use an intra-oral camera to capture a sequence of calibrated images. These images are registered together to build a panoramic view of the jaw. We incorporate a shape from shading(SFS) algorithm that benefits from camera calibration parameters to build a 3D model from the panoramic image obtained from the previous stage. Our approach results in a 3D surface which has more fine details compared with those resulting from other literature techniques. We will demonstrate different artificial jaws surfaces reconstruction to show the efficiency of our system.