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Ground truth data generation for skull–face overlay

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Abstract

Objective and unbiased validation studies over a significant number of cases are required to get a more solid picture on craniofacial superimposition reliability. It will not be possible to compare the performance of existing and upcoming methods for craniofacial superimposition without a common forensic database available for the research community. Skull–face overlay is a key task within craniofacial superimposition that has a direct influence on the subsequent task devoted to evaluate the skull–face relationships. In this work, we present the procedure to create for the first time such a dataset. We have also created a database with 19 skull–face overlay cases for which we are trying to overcome legal issues that allow us to make it public. The quantitative analysis made in the segmentation and registration stages, together with the visual assessment of the 19 face-to-face overlays, allows us to conclude that the results can be considered as a gold standard. With such a ground truth dataset, a new horizon is opened for the development of new automatic methods whose performance could be now objectively measured and compared against previous and future proposals. Additionally, other uses are expected to be explored to better understand the visual evaluation process of craniofacial relationships in craniofacial identification. It could be very useful also as a starting point for further studies on the prediction of the resulting facial morphology after corrective or reconstructive interventionism in maxillofacial surgery.

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Notes

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the participants that give us the permission to work with both their head scans and facial photographs, Drs. Luca Contardo and Domenico Dalessandri for the support provided during images acquisition and head scanning. The University Hospital of Trieste and Ortoscan for supporting this research. This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under the SOCOVIFI2 project (refs. TIN2012-38525-C01/C02, http://www.softcomputing.es/socovifi/), the Andalusian Department of Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa under project TIC2011-7745, the Principality of Asturias Government under the project with reference CT13-55, and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research technological development and demonstration under the MEPROCS project (Grant Agreement No. 285624), including European Development Regional Funds (EDRF). Mrs. C. Campomanes-Álvarez’s work has been supported by Spanish MECD FPU grant AP-2012-4285. Dr. Ibañez’s work has been supported by Spanish MINECO Juan de la Cierva Fellowship JCI-2012-15359.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Granada, 18014, Granada, Spain

    O. Ibáñez & C. Campomanes-Álvarez

  2. European Centre for Soft Computing, 33600, Mieres, Asturias, Spain

    O. Ibáñez, B. R. Campomanes-Álvarez & A. Valsecchi

  3. Research Unit of Paleoradiology and Allied Sciences, Ospedali Riuniti di Trieste, Trieste, Italy

    F. Cavalli

  4. Physical Anthropology Laboratory, University of Granada, 18012, Granada, Spain

    M. I. Huete

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  1. O. Ibáñez
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  2. F. Cavalli
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  3. B. R. Campomanes-Álvarez
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  4. C. Campomanes-Álvarez
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  5. A. Valsecchi
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  6. M. I. Huete
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Correspondence to O. Ibáñez.

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Ibáñez, O., Cavalli, F., Campomanes-Álvarez, B.R. et al. Ground truth data generation for skull–face overlay. Int J Legal Med 129, 569–581 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-014-1074-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-014-1074-1

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