Dental radiographs and photographs in human forensic identification

Abstract

Dentistry can contribute for the identification of human remains after any disasters or crimes in assistance to other medical specialties. The algorithm can be developed by comparing post mortem and ante mortem dental radiographs. This work aims to introduce photographic images in addition to radiographs. In this research a contour and skeleton-based shape extraction as well as matching algorithm for dental images is proposed. An active contour model with selective binary and Gaussian filtering regularised level set method is used for contour extraction. Shape matching is done by both contour and skeleton-based approaches. The experimental results are obtained from a database of dental images include both radiographs and photographs. This algorithm provides better matching decision about the person than the existing algorithms since it includes skeleton measures also. The performance measures obtained and the hit-rate indicates that the better matching is observed with radiographic than the photographic images.

Software Assisted Profiling of Dentition in Human Identification

“…Forensic odontology, as one of the primary identification methods, is a dynamic field which has developed in recent past [12]. A successful conclusion can be brought only if the identification strategy is properly planned by selecting the appropriate forensic diagnostic tools and involving a team of well-trained key experts [13,14]. Developing an automated digital dental identification system is a demanding challenge at present [15].…”

Potential contribution of periapical radiographic film image processing for forensic identification

“…Some studies have applied automated methods to increase the identification efficiency and accuracy. Methods work with algorithms that recognize contour patterns and dental structure shapes [18][19] .…”

An effective numbering and classification system for dental panoramic radiographs

“…Thus it reduces the search space. It is understood from [7], that individual tooth matching will yield better results than matching either the whole image or the mandible or maxilla.…”

“…Vijayakumari et al, followed a slightly variant approach of matching dental records using both similarity and distance metric as handled in [6]. Dental bitewing radiographs are analyzed using both shape and also appearance [7]. The usage of photograph for human identification in addition with radiographs is detailed in [8].…”