Analyzing infant head flatness and asymmetry using kernel density estimation of directional surface data from a craniofacial 3D model

Ville Vuollo; Lasse Holmström; Henri Aarnivala; Virpi Harila; Tuomo Heikkinen; Pertti Pirttiniemi; Arja Marita Valkama

doi:10.1002/sim.7032

Analyzing infant head flatness and asymmetry using kernel density estimation of directional surface data from a craniofacial 3D model

Stat Med. 2016 Nov 20;35(26):4891-4904. doi: 10.1002/sim.7032. Epub 2016 Jul 6.

Authors

Ville Vuollo^{1

2

3}, Lasse Holmström⁴, Henri Aarnivala^{5

6

7}, Virpi Harila^{8

5}, Tuomo Heikkinen^{8

5}, Pertti Pirttiniemi^{8

5}, Arja Marita Valkama^{5

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Orthodontics, Oral Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. ville.vuollo@oulu.fi.
² Medical Research Center Oulu, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland. ville.vuollo@oulu.fi.
³ Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. ville.vuollo@oulu.fi.
⁴ Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
⁵ Medical Research Center Oulu, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland.
⁶ Department of Children and Adolescence, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland.
⁷ PEDEGO Research Group, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
⁸ Department of Orthodontics, Oral Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.

PMID: 27383684
DOI: 10.1002/sim.7032

Abstract

Infant skull deformation is analyzed using the distribution of head normal vector directions computed from a 3D image. Severity of flatness and asymmetry are quantified by functionals of the kernel estimate of the normal vector direction density. Using image data from 99 infants and clinical deformation ratings made by experts, our approach is compared with some recently suggested methods. The results show that the proposed method performs competitively. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: 3D shape analysis; 3D surface imaging; directional statistics; head shape; kernel density estimation; spherical data.

MeSH terms

Head / anatomy & histology*
Humans
Imaging, Three-Dimensional*
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Observer Variation