Comparison of laser and structured light scanning techniques for neurosurgery applications

Reverse engineering has been widely used in the medical field for reconstruction of anatomical structures and designing of implants. Another emerging application of reverse engineering is calculation of volume and surface area of drilled bones for comparing various surgical approaches to reach the region of interest. The objective of the present study was to compare two commercially available contact free optical scanning technologies based on laser scanning and structured light scanning methods for surface area and volume calculation. Five specimens of cube, cone, cylinder and sphere with defined dimensions were fabricated using additive manufacturing. Surface models of fabricated specimens were obtained using laser scanning and blue light scanning techniques. Volumes and surface areas were calculated from scanned data and compared using mean, median and standard deviation and with their actual reference values. Results show that blue light scanning is more accurate and easy to use method for such applications.