A Three-Dimensional Computerized Facial Reconstruction Using Non-Linear Registration of A Reference Head

Abstract

This paper presents a 3D computerized facial reconstruction method based on recent techniques of medical imaging. It is based on a reference 3D image from which skull and skin are extracted, and an image of the skull of the unknown head for which the skin should be reconstructed. The facial reconstruction is obtained by deforming the 3D image of the reference skull to the one of the unknown skull. This transformation is based on a non-linear registration method guided by B-splines Free-Form Deformations (FFD). Then, the same deformation is applied to transform the reference skin to obtain a new skin that we consider near the unknown skin. This method has been evaluated on sets of skull/skin data, extracted from 3D-MRI of individual heads having similar anthropological features.