Patent ID: 8620045

Claim:
A method of operating a system for use in mandibular motion tracking, the method comprising: comparing by at least one processor an appearance of at least one shape of at least a first fiducial marker in a first digital image of the mandible to at least one defined actual shape of the fiducial marker; and an appearance of at least one shape of at least the same fiducial marker in a second digital image of the mandible to at least the first fiducial marker and at least one of correlating, normalizing, or correcting the at least the first digital image, based at least in part on the comparisons to subsequent images, and comparisons to the actual fiducial marker, including three dimensional comparison such that the rotations and translations of the mandible versus the maxilla can be measured as changes from the first digital image; said method further comprising a second fiducial marker mounted to the cranium in a manner whereby it does not move as a result of mandibular movement, said second fiducial marker being used for normalization or geometric correlation of the image data in a series of images.