X-ray CT images have been widely used in clinical routine in recent years. CT images scanned by a modern CT scanner can show the details of various organs and tissues. This means various organs and tissues can be simultaneously interpreted on CT images. However, CT image interpretation requires a lot of time and energy. Therefore, support for interpreting CT images based on image-processing tec...

Background. Abnormal spinal curvature is routinely assessed with plain radiographs, MDCT, and MRI. MDCT can provide two-dimensional (2-D) orthogonal as well as reconstructed three-dimensional volume-rendered (3-D VR) images of the spine, including the translucent display: a computer-generated image set that enables the visualization of surgical instrumentation through bony structures. We hypoth...

PURPOSE: In scoliosis monitoring, tracked ultrasound has been explored as a safer imaging alternative to traditional radiography. The use of ultrasound in spinal curvature measurement requires identification of vertebral landmarks, but bones have reduced visibility in ultrasound imaging and high quality ultrasound machines are often expensive and not portable. In this work, we investigate the i...

To decrease the influence of postural sway during spinal measurements, an instrumented fixation posture (called G) was proposed and tested in comparison with the free standing posture (A) using the DTP-3 system in a group of 70 healthy volunteers. The measurement was performed 5 times on each subject and each position was tested by a newly developed device for non-invasive spinal measurements c...

This paper describes modelling and control of typical open systems: one is electroactive polymer gel and another is spinal nervous system. It is very important to estimate the model based on their mechanisms in order to navigate the subjects into objective states. Firstly, the wave-shape pattern control method was proposed based on the gel model. Wave-shaped gels with varying curvature were obt...

Objective Ultrasound imaging has been used to measure the coronal curvature and vertebral rotation on children with scoliosis. However, those studies still use the two-dimensional information to report the three-dimensional (3D) deformity. To truly describe the 3D curvature of spine, a 3D spinal image is needed. This study reported a preliminary experiment to reconstruct a 3D spinal curvature f...