• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.265-272
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• 2006

For the design and analysis of 3D object featuring complexity and irregularity in shape, sectional digital images measured by an industrial CT scanner are employed to generate a finite element model with uniform voxels. The voxel model plays a key role in developing an integrated reverse engineering system including geometric modeling, simulation and optimization. Design examples applied to topology optimization show that the proposed approach can provide a remarkable reduction in time cost at the conceptual and detail design stages.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.794-804
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• 2012

For the geometric computations on the protein molecules, the proximity queries, such as computing the minimum distance from an arbitrary point to the molecule or detecting the collision between a point and the molecule, are essential. For the proximity queries, the efficiency of the computation time can be different according to the data structure used for the molecule. In this paper, we present the data structures and algorithms for applying proximity queries to a molecule with GPU acceleration. We present two data structures, a voxel map and a sphere tree, where the molecule is represented as a set of spheres, and corresponding algorithms. Moreover, we show that the performance of presented data structures are improved from 3 to 633 times compared to the previous data structure for the molecules containing 1,000~15,000 atoms.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
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• v.19A no.2
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• pp.73-76
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• 2012

In this paper, we propose an efficient method to extract surface atoms from a protein molecule. Surface atoms are defined as a set of atoms who can contact given probe solvent $P$, where $P$ does not collide with the molecule. The atoms contained in the molecule are represented as a set of spheres with van der Waals radii. The probe solvent also is represented as a sphere. We propose a method to extract the surface atoms by computing the offset surface of the molecule with respect to the radius of $P$. For efficient computation of the offset surface of a molecule, a voxel map is constructed for the offset surfaces of the spheres. Based on GPU (graphic processor unit) acceleration, a data parallel algorithm is used to extract the surface atoms in 42.87 milliseconds for the molecule containing up to 6,412 atoms.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.177-184
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was performed to evaluate the influence of voxel size and the accuracy of 2 cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) systems in the detection of vertical root fracture (VRF) in the presence of intracanal metallic posts. Materials and Methods: Thirty uniradicular extracted human teeth were selected and randomly divided into 2 groups(VRF group, n=15; and control group, n=15). The VRFs were induced by an Instron machine, and metallic posts were placed in both groups. The scans were acquired by CBCT with 4 different voxel sizes: 0.1 mm and 0.16 mm (for the Eagle 3D V-Beam system) and 0.125 mm and 0.2 mm (for the i-CAT system) (protocols 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively). Interobserver and intraobserver agreement was assessed using the Cohen kappa test. Sensitivity and specificity were evaluated and receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed. Results: The intraobserver coefficients indicated good (0.71) to very good (0.83) agreement, and the interobserver coefficients indicated moderate (0.57) to very good (0.80) agreement. In respect to the relationship between sensitivity and specificity, a statistically significant difference was found between protocols 1 (positive predictive value: 0.710, negative predictive value: 0.724) and 3 (positive predictive value: 0.727, negative predictive value: 0.632) (P<.05). The least interference due to artifact formation was observed using protocol 2. Conclusion: Protocols with a smaller voxel size and field of view seemed to favor the detection of VRF in teeth with intracanal metallic posts.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.93-101
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• 2016

Purpose: The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of varying resolutions of cone-beam computed tomography images on the accuracy of linear measurements of edentulous areas in human cadaver heads. Intact cadaver heads were used to simulate a clinical situation. Materials and Methods: Fiduciary markers were placed in the edentulous areas of 4 intact embalmed cadaver heads. The heads were scanned with two different CBCT units using a large field of view ($13cm{\times}16cm$) and small field of view ($5cm{\times}8cm$) at varying voxel sizes (0.3 mm, 0.2 mm, and 0.16 mm). The ground truth was established with digital caliper measurements. The imaging measurements were then compared with caliper measurements to determine accuracy. Results: The Wilcoxon signed rank test revealed no statistically significant difference between the medians of the physical measurements obtained with calipers and the medians of the CBCT measurements. A comparison of accuracy among the different imaging protocols revealed no significant differences as determined by the Friedman test. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.961, indicating excellent reproducibility. Inter-observer variability was determined graphically with a Bland-Altman plot and by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient. The Bland-Altman plot indicated very good reproducibility for smaller measurements but larger discrepancies with larger measurements. Conclusion: The CBCT-based linear measurements in the edentulous sites using different voxel sizes and FOVs are accurate compared with the direct caliper measurements of these sites. Higher resolution CBCT images with smaller voxel size did not result in greater accuracy of the linear measurements.

• The korean journal of orthodontics
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.97-105
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• 2019

Objective: This study was performed to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of a newly designed method to achieve mandibular dental model superimposition, using voxel-based cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) registration. Methods: Fourteen dry cadaveric mandibles and six teeth extracted from patients with severe periodontitis were used to establish 14 orthodontic tooth-movement models. The protocol consisted of two steps: in the first step, voxel-based CBCT mandible superimposition was performed; the reference comprised the external portion of the symphysis, extending to the first molar. The laser-scanned dental model image was then integrated with the CBCT image to achieve mandibular dental model superimposition. The entire process required approximately 10 minutes. Six landmarks were assigned to the teeth to measure tooth displacement, using tooth displacement on the superimposed laser-scanned mandibles as the reference standard. Accuracy was evaluated by comparing differences in tooth displacement based on the method and the reference standard. Two observers performed superimposition to evaluate reliability. Results: For three-dimensional tooth displacements, the differences between the method and the reference standard were not significant in the molar, premolar, or incisor groups (p > 0.05). The intraclass correlation coefficients for the inter- and intra-observer reliabilities of all measurements were > 0.92. Conclusions: Our method of mandibular dental model superimposition based on voxel registration is accurate, reliable, and can be performed within a reasonable period of time in vitro, demonstrating a potential for use in orthodontic patients.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.25-34
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• 2013

To investigate effects of phase mask on susceptibility-weighted images (SWI) using voxel-based analyses in normal elderly subjects. A three-dimensional (3D) gradient echo sequence ran to obtain SWIs in 20 healthy elderly subjects. SWIs with two (SWI2) and four (SWI4) phase multiplications were achieved with positive (PSWI) and negative (NSWI) phase masks to investigate phase mask effects. The voxel-based comparisons were performed using paired t-tests between PSWI and NSWI and between SWI2 and SWI4. Differences of signal intensities between magnitude images and SWI4 were larger than those between magnitude images and SWI2s. Differences of signal intensities between magnitude images and PSWIs were larger than those between magnitude images and NSWIs. Moreover, the signal intensities from NSWI2s and NSWI4s were greater than those from PSWI2s and PSWI4s, respectively. More differences of signal intensities between NSWI4 and PSWI4s were found than those between NSWI2s and PSWI2s in the whole brain images. The voxel-based analyses of SWI could be beneficial to investigate susceptibility differences on the entire brain areas. The phase masking method could be chosen to enhance brain tissue contrast rather than to enhance venous blood vessels. Therefore, it is recommended to apply voxel-based analyses of SWI to investigate clinical applications.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.210-217
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• 2004

In this study, a new process, named as nano replication printing(nRP) process, is developed for printing any figure in the range of several micrometers by using voxel matrix scanning scheme. In this newly developed process, a femto-second laser is scanned on a photosensitive monomer resin in order to induce polymerization of the liquid resin according to a voxel matrix which is transformed from bitmap format file. After the polymerization, a droplet of ethanol is dropt to remove the unnecessary remaining liquid resin and then the polymerized figures with nano-scaled precision are only remaining on the glass plate. By the nRP process, any figure file of bitmap format could be reproduced as nano-scaled precision replication in the range of several micrometers. Also, nano/micro-scaled patterns for an extremely wide range of applications would become a technologically feasible reality. Some of figures with nano-scaled precision were printed in scaled replication as examples to prove the usefulness of this study.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.1365-1368
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• 2004

A scheme to control the laser power and the exposure time was studied to fabricate precise microstructures using the nanostereolithography (nSL) process. Some recent works have shown that a three-dimensional (3D) microstructure can be fabricated by the photopolymerizing process which is induced by two-photon absorption (TPA) with a femtosecond pulse laser. TPA provides the ability to confine photochemical and physical reactions within the order of laser wavelength, so neardiffraction limit features can be produced. In the nSL process, voxels are continuously generated to form a layer and then another layer is stacked in the normal direction of a plane to construct a 3D structure. Thus, fabrication of a voxel with low aspect ratio and small diameter is one of the most important parameters for fabricating precise 3D microstructures. In this work, the mechanism of a voxel formation is studied and a scheme on the control of laser power and exposure for minimizing aspect ratio of a voxel is proposed.

• International Journal of CAD/CAM
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.105-115
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• 2006

Thickness is a commonly used parameter in product design and manufacture. Its intuitive definition as the smallest dimension of a cross-section or the minimum distance between two opposite surfaces is ambiguous for intricate solids, and there is very little reported work in automatic computation of thickness. We present three generic definitions of thickness: interior thickness of points inside an object, exterior thickness for points on the object surface, and radiographic thickness along a view direction. Methods for computing and displaying the respective thickness values are also presented. The internal thickness distribution is obtained by peeling or successive skin removal, eventually revealing the object skeleton (similar to medial axis transformation). Another method involves radiographic scanning along a viewing direction, with minimum, maximum and total thickness options, displayed on the surface of the object. The algorithms have been implemented using an efficient voxel based representation that can handle up to one billion voxels (1000 per axis), coupled with a near-real time display scheme that uses a look-up table based on voxel neighborhood configurations. Three different types of intricate objects: industrial (press cylinder casting), sculpture (Ganesha idol), and medical (pelvic bone) were used for successfully testing the algorithms. The results are found to be useful for early evaluation of manufacturability and other lifecycle considerations.