Digital design of individual nose implant

The traditional nose implant is based on experience and handicraft of surgeons, which can't correspond exactly to patient's bone feature and perfectly enhance patient's appearance. This paper introduces a three-dimensional design system of digital implant. In this system, image segmentation and gray expanding were employed to reconstruct modal of nasal bone and akin from patent's CT image. 3-D morphing and quantitative measurement were applied to reshape the nose, according to the patient's expectation. Through calculating the difference between original and reshaped nose, and analyzing thickness of soft tissue, 3-D digital nose implant could be generated. The system enhances surgeon-patient communication and the clinical results match with the simulations. So the application of digital implant to actual clinic shows the system's efficiency and practicability.