Multi-view imaging and optical path reconstruction for dental optical coherence tomography

Dental imaging is a promising application of optical coherence tomography (OCT) but has not yet been translated into clinical practice. OCT-based caries diagnostics and filling inspection have been successfully demonstrated, but geometry of the tooth surface, a limited penetration depth and multiple scattering often limit the analysis of deeper lesions. Here, we show a preliminary setup and software for the 3D measurement of teeth from multiple angles and a reconstruction of geometrically corrected volume data. The correction for light refraction using Snell’s law and the optical path delay in the OCT volume is achieved by a manual surface segmentation and an estimated refractive index. Eventually, the reconstruction is validated by a comparison with X-ray micro-computed tomography (µCT) and the spatial registration of both volumes.