Simulation of postoperative 3D facial morphology using a physics-based head model

We propose a prototype of a facial surgery simulation system for surgical p lanning and the prediction of facial deformation. We use a physics-based hu man head model. Our head model has a 3D hierarchical structure that consist s of soft tissue and the skull, constructed from the exact 3D CT patient da ta. Anatomic points measured on X-ray images from both frontal and side vie ws are used to fire the model to the patient's head. The purposes of this r esearch is to analyze the relationship between changes of mandibular positi on and facial morphology after orthognathic surgery, and to simulate the ex act postoperative 3D facial shape. In the experiment, we used our model to predict the facial shape after surgery for patients with mandibular prognat hism. Comparing the simulation results and the actual facial images after t he surgery shows that the proposed method is practical.