An evaluation of automatic marking of anatomical landmarks for back surface deformity analysis

Back deformity studies require marks or labels which are attached on patient's body in order to measure and evaluate the level of severity. Manually marking of anatomical landmarks on two dimensional (2D) image can reduce time-consuming in traditional process but there is difficulty in 2D-visually locating the anatomical landmarks in some patients. Currently, 3D scanners are inexpensive and become widespread in various applications. The advantage of depth information from 3D scanner can assist to locate anatomical landmarks for back surface deformity analysis. In this study, automatically marking methods are assessed and compared among themselves and manual method. The experiments are tested on both phantom and humans.