Computer-assisted three-dimensional surgical planning and simulation - 3D soft tissue planning and prediction

The purpose of this paper is to report a new technique for three-dimensiona l facial soft-tissue-change prediction after simulated orthognathic surgica l planning. A scheme for soft tissue deformation, "Computer-assisted three- dimensional virtual reality soft tissue planning and prediction for orthogn athic surgery (CASP)", is presented. The surgical planning was based on thr ee-dimensional reconstructed CT visualization. Soft tissue changes were pre dicted by two newly devised algorithms: Surface Normal-based Model Deformat ion Algorithm and Ray Projection-based Model Deformation Algorithm. A three -dimensional color facial texture-mapping technique was also used for gener ating the color photo-realistic facial model. As a final result, a predicte d and simulated patient's color facial model can be visualized from arbitra ry viewing points.