The aim of this study was to establish a computer-aided automated method for cephalometric superimposition and to evaluate the accuracy of this method based on free-hand tracing. Twenty-eight pairs of pre-treatment (T1) and post-treatment (T2) cephalograms were selected. Structural superimpositions of the anterior cranial base, maxilla and mandible were independently completed by three operators performing traditional hand tracing methods and by computerized automation using the feature matching algorithm. To quantitatively evaluate the differences between the two methods, the hand superimposed patterns were digitized. After automated and hand superimposition of T2 cephalograms to T1 cephalometric templates, landmark distances between paired automated and hand T2 cephalometric landmarks were measured. Differences in hand superimposition among the operators were also calculated. The T2 landmark differences in hand tracing between the operators ranged from 0.61 mm to 1.65 mm for the three types of superimposition. There were no significant differences in accuracy between hand and automated superimposition (p > 0.05). Computer-aided cephalometric superimposition provides comparably accurate results to those of traditional hand tracing and will provide a powerful tool for academic research.

中文翻译：

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特征匹配在自动头颅叠加中的应用及准确性

这项研究的目的是建立一种计算机辅助的头影叠加自动方法，并基于徒手追踪评估该方法的准确性。选择了28对治疗前（T1）和治疗后（T2）的脑电图。前颅底，上颌骨和下颌骨的结构叠加由三名操作员执行传统的手部追踪方法并通过使用特征匹配算法的计算机自动化来独立完成。为了定量评估两种方法之间的差异，将手叠图案数字化。在将T2头颅图自动和手动叠加到T1头影测量模板后，测量了成对的自动和手头T2头影测量界标之间的界标距离。还计算了操作员之间手部重叠的差异。对于三种叠加类型，操作员之间手迹的T2界标差异在0.61毫米至1.65毫米之间。手动和自动叠加之间的准确性没有显着差异（p> 0.05）。计算机辅助的头颅测量叠加可以提供与传统手部追踪相比较准确的结果，并将为学术研究提供强大的工具。