Human spine posture estimation method from human images to calculate physical forces working on vertebrae

Abstract

This paper describes a method for estimating a human spine posture from human images using a human spine model to compute the rough approximation of the physical forces working on vertebral bodies. Our method uses the positions of the neck and waist in addition to the positions of the head, torso, and arms estimated from the actual human images. The spine model constructed from 3-D CT images is deformed to place the top and the bottom vertebrae of the spine model to the estimated neck and waist positions. According to the experimental results based on one real MR image dataset of one subject person, our methods estimated the positions of the vertebrae within positional shifts of about 6.3 mm and the rotational variation of about 3.1 degrees. We also confirmed the methods calculated the reasonable estimation of the physical forces working on the vertebral body. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.