3D Vertebrae Measurements: Assessing Vertebral Dimensions in Human Spine
  Mesh Models Using Local Anatomical Vertebral Axes
Ivanna Kramer Vinzent Rittel Lara Blomenkamp Sabine Bauer Dietrich Paulus
Vertebral morphological measurements are important across various
disciplines, including spinal biomechanics and clinical applications, pre- and
post-operatively. These measurements also play a crucial role in
anthropological longitudinal studies, where spinal metrics are repeatedly
documented over extended periods. Traditionally, such measurements have been
manually conducted, a process that is time-consuming. In this study, we
introduce a novel, fully automated method for measuring vertebral morphology
using 3D meshes of lumbar and thoracic spine models.Our experimental results
demonstrate the method's capability to accurately measure low-resolution
patient-specific vertebral meshes with mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.09 mm and
those derived from artificially created lumbar spines, where the average MAE
value was 0.7 mm. Our qualitative analysis indicates that measurements obtained
using our method on 3D spine models can be accurately reprojected back onto the
original medical images if these images are available.