Constantino F. Mugarra Gonzalez Facultat de Fisica. It is based on taking two or more images from different points of view, making afterwards a 3D reconstruction. Commercial systems tend to use infrared sources of light, increasing the total cost of the system. The method proposed has no need of infrared beams or reflectors, hence reducing the complexity of the involved devices. Infrared light sensors are also very sensitive to changes on the reflection angle, leading to increasing problems when measuring dynamic images.
Visible light simplifies the patient preparation, and allows using non-invasive marks.
Light used is centered in violet for better image thresholding. When two images for stereo vision are taken they are shrank to obtain the points that better represent the marks. Next step is to obtain the correspondence between same points in both images. This problem is solved adjusting data to the minimum curvature B-Spline curve extracting the vertebral column profile. Everything is integrated in a 3D digital environment in a personal computer, allowing medical professionals to develop functional studies and static measures related to possible deviations in vertebral columns.