Developing D-flow applications for measuring parameters and visualising geometry of spine of patients with scoliosis

The knowledge of geometry of spine is quite useful in treatment of various diseases of the spine such as scoliosis. Clinicians usually obtain geometry of spine or vertebrae column using radiology although other imaging techniques such as computed tomography, ultrasound, nuclear imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are also used. The main limitation of radiography is that it is two dimensional while spine geometry of scoliosis is three dimensional. Thus the main aim of this project was to develop a D-flow based application that will calculate and visualise three dimensional shape of the spine using motion capture system. Three applications namely; pointing wand calibration, marker dependent and marker independent applications, were developed in D-flow software during the project. The applications were then tested by visualising geometry of skeleton and S- shaped cable. The marker dependent application was tested by attaching passive Infrared markers to the skeleton while for the marker independent no marker was attached to the skeleton. For the marker dependent application, the markers attached on skeleton were labelled in a particular sequence by pointing the wand close to a marker and pressing button of phidget. After labelling all markers the software visualised the spine automatically. For the marker independent application the geometry of the spine was obtained by pointing the wand at each anatomical land mark of vertebrae and pressing button of phidget to capture coordinates of that position. The protocol of labelling vertebrae for marker independent starts from cervical region up to sacral region. The coordinates of the labelled points were used to calculate different parameters and reconstruct a visualisation of the spine. The numerical results of parameters such as angle parameters from both applications and also from manual measurements were analysed and compared using statistical software Minitab. Consequently there was no much difference between values of parameters from both developed visualising applications. Hence both could accurately visualise the geometry of spine and calculate parameters defining curvature of the spine. In conclusion the developed applications were easy to use and besides they could accurately measure the parameters and visualise innovatively the shape of the spine as required.The knowledge of geometry of spine is quite useful in treatment of various diseases of the spine such as scoliosis. Clinicians usually obtain geometry of spine or vertebrae column using radiology although other imaging techniques such as computed tomography, ultrasound, nuclear imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are also used. The main limitation of radiography is that it is two dimensional while spine geometry of scoliosis is three dimensional. Thus the main aim of this project was to develop a D-flow based application that will calculate and visualise three dimensional shape of the spine using motion capture system. Three applications namely; pointing wand calibration, marker dependent and marker independent applications, were developed in D-flow software during the project. The applications were then tested by visualising geometry of skeleton and S- shaped cable. The marker dependent application was tested by attaching passive Infrared markers to the skeleton while for the marker independent no marker was attached to the skeleton. For the marker dependent application, the markers attached on skeleton were labelled in a particular sequence by pointing the wand close to a marker and pressing button of phidget. After labelling all markers the software visualised the spine automatically. For the marker independent application the geometry of the spine was obtained by pointing the wand at each anatomical land mark of vertebrae and pressing button of phidget to capture coordinates of that position. The protocol of labelling vertebrae for marker independent starts from cervical region up to sacral region. The coordinates of the labelled points were used to calculate different parameters and reconstruct a visualisation of the spine. The numerical results of parameters such as angle parameters from both applications and also from manual measurements were analysed and compared using statistical software Minitab. Consequently there was no much difference between values of parameters from both developed visualising applications. Hence both could accurately visualise the geometry of spine and calculate parameters defining curvature of the spine. In conclusion the developed applications were easy to use and besides they could accurately measure the parameters and visualise innovatively the shape of the spine as required