Method for representing a patient's treatment site as data for use with a CAD or CAM device

Claim 1

A method for representing a treatment site on a patient, the treatment site containing a surface, as data suitable for use with a computer-aided design device, the method comprising the steps of: scanning the treatment site with a scanning apparatus to produce image data for a plurality of voxels; identifying a plurality of boundary voxels representative of the surface of the treatment site; generating a vector representing the location of each boundary voxel; and converting the vectors into a form of data suitable for use with a computer-aided design device by associating each of the vectors with a pole of a control polygon of a non-uniform rational B-spline.

Claim 2

A method for representing a treatment site on a patient, the treatment site containing a surface, as data suitable for use with a computer-aided design device, the method comprising the steps of: scanning the treatment site with a scanning apparatus to produce image data for a plurality of voxels; identifying a plurality of boundary voxels representative of the surface of the treatment site; generating a vector representing the location of each boundary voxel; and converting the vectors into a form of data suitable for use with a computer-aided design device by associating each of the vectors with a pole of a control polygon of a non-uniform rational B-spline.

Claim 6

A method for modelling an image of a surface of a treatment site on a patient, the method comprising the steps of: generating a plurality of sets of data values for a plurality of voxels defining a three dimensional object, the data values within each set corresponding to a property of a three-dimensional object along the first and a second dimension, the object defining the treatment site, each set of data values corresponding to the property at one of a plurality of predetermined positions along a third dimension; identifying the voxels that define the surface; measuring a magnitude of each identified voxel; using the magnitude of each identified voxel to generate a corresponding vector; converting the vectors into computer-aided-design data suitable for use with a computer-aided design device by associating each vector with a pole of a control polygon of a non-uniform rational B-spline; converting the computer-aided-design data into slice data suitable for use with a stereolithography system; and forming a model of the image with the stereolithography system.

Claim 7

A method for modelling an image of a surface of a treatment site on a patient, the method comprising the steps of: generating a plurality of sets of data values for a plurality of voxels defining a three dimensional object, the data values within each set corresponding to a property of a three-dimensional object along the first and a second dimension, the object defining the treatment site, each set of data values corresponding to the property at one of a plurality of predetermined positions along a third dimension; identifying the voxels that define the surface; measuring a magnitude of each identified voxel; using the magnitude of each identified voxel to generate a corresponding vector; converting the vectors into computer-aided-design data suitable for use with a computer-aided design device by associating each vector with a pole of a control polygon of a non-uniform rational B-spline; converting the computer-aided-design data into slice data suitable for use with a stereolithography system; and forming a model of the image with the stereolithography system.

Claim 17

A method for producing a visual representation of at least a portion of an image of an object comprising the steps of: generating an image of an object including a structure of interest using a non-intrusive image generating device which produces a set of image data; filtering the image data to distinguish between image data points corresponding to a structure of interest and image data points corresponding to other structures; generating a surface representation of the structure of interest using the filtered image data; generating a set of vectors from the surface representation defining the boundary of the structure of interest; associating each vector with a pole of a non-uniform rational B-spline to create a series of such B-splines; generating one or more polynomial equations from one or more nonuniform rational B-splines; and displaying a visual representation of the structure of interest utilizing a display device which displays images utilizing polynomials generated from non-uniform rational B-splines.

Claim 18

A method for producing a visual representation of at least a portion of an image of an object comprising the steps of: generating an image of an object including a structure of interest using a non-intrusive image generating device which produces a set of image data; filtering the image data to distinguish between image data points corresponding to a structure of interest and image data points corresponding to other structures; generating a surface representation of the structure of interest using the filtered image data; generating a set of vectors from the surface representation defining the boundary of the structure of interest; associating each vector with a pole of a non-uniform rational B-spline to create a series of such B-splines; generating one or more polynomial equations from one or more nonuniform rational B-splines; and displaying a visual representation of the structure of interest utilizing a display device which displays images utilizing polynomials generated from non-uniform rational B-splines.

Claim 37

A method for physically modelling an image of a surface of a structure of interest, the method comprising the steps of: generating an image of an object including the structure of interest using a non-intrusive image generating device which produces a set of image data; filtering the image data to distinguish between image data points corresponding to the structure of interest and image data points corresponding to other structures; generating a surface representation of the structure of interest using the filtered image data; generating a set of vectors from the surface representation defining the boundary of the structure of interest; associating each vector with a pole of a non-uniform rational B-spline to create a series of such B-splines; generating one or more polynomial equations from one or more nonuniform rational B-splines; converting the polynomial equations into slice data suitable for use with a stereolithography system; and forming a model of the image of the surface of the structure of interest with the stereolithography system.

Claim 38

A method for physically modelling an image of a surface of a structure of interest, the method comprising the steps of: generating an image of an object including the structure of interest using a non-intrusive image generating device which produces a set of image data; filtering the image data to distinguish between image data points corresponding to the structure of interest and image data points corresponding to other structures; generating a surface representation of the structure of interest using the filtered image data; generating a set of vectors from the surface representation defining the boundary of the structure of interest; associating each vector with a pole of a non-uniform rational B-spline to create a series of such B-splines; generating one or more polynomial equations from one or more nonuniform rational B-splines; converting the polynomial equations into slice data suitable for use with a stereolithography system; and forming a model of the image of the surface of the structure of interest with the stereolithography system.