A Computer‐Aided Image Analysis System for Area Measurement of Tooth Root Surfaces

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Abstract
The characteristics of a computer-aided Image Analysis System (IAS) to conduct linear and area measurements on tooth root surfaces were investigated. The borders of the features to be measured were extracted from a digitized video image by histogrambased thresholding and binarization. The lengths and square areas were expressed in the number of pixels. The reference-length and area of one pixel were obtained through measurement of the diameter of a metal ball of known diameter in the same digital image. The validity of the IAS was tested using radiographs of teeth containing round metal restorations of known diameter and area. The accuracy of the length measurements ranged from –2.0 to 2.1%, whereas the accuracy of area measurement was between –5.3 and 0.8%. The precision of the IAS to identify the borders of a tooth root surface and to reproducibly calculate its area, expressed in a coefficient of variation, ranges from 0.49 to 4.11%. The results indicate that imaging techniques can be applied to obtain very accurate measurements of tooth root surfaces. J Periodontol 1990;61:275–280.