The increasing demand for dental implants has led to the need for additional non-invasive diagnostic aids.  Planning placements of dental implants requires identification of various anatomical structures; maxillary sinus, osseous undercuts, mandibular nerveand artery, as well as the osseous dimensions.  Application of computed tomography to dental implant placement planning was shown to be a valuable diagnostic aid.  The availability and cost of this imaging technique has limited its use.  Conventional, linear, tomograms may offer a more available imaging system with relative diagnostic benefit.  Dr. Mayfield's research has focused on developing new algorithms to enhance the diagnostic potential of conventional cross-sectional tomography.  Using a Linear Tomographic machine (which represented the greatest algorithmic challenge), imaging technique was defined for various regions of the mandibular arch.  This included defining angulation, kVp, film position, slice thickness, and magnification.  Software algorithms are being developed to achieve the following aims: (1) To detect the edge of bone in cross-sectional images produced with conventional tomography.  The goal of these algorithms is to minimize the blur artifact inherent to motion based film tomography.  These algorithms have been developed and recently presented at the IEEE/Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and the IADR/AADR. ( 2) To utilize the enhanced tomographic images to develop new algorithms to perform three dimensional rendering of the jaws.  These three dimensional renderings will be used to facilitate interactive placement of dental implants in the computer.  They will permit three-dimensional reconstruction of the jaws and visualization of the jaw from any viewpoint using a personal computer and the relatively inexpensive and available linear tomographic radiographic equipment. ( 3) To validate the algorithms in vitro and in vivo.