3-D printing based production of head and neck masks for radiation therapy using CT volume data: A fully automatic framework

In this study, we proposed a fully automatic framework to construct and produce immobilization masks for radiation therapy of head/neck. This method uses 3-D printing technology along with image analysis approaches based on 3-D CT image data, which consists of two important aspects: facial model construction and facial features recognition. The facial model construction dedicates to extract the skin surface of head/neck/shoulder. After that the facial features are recognized automatically based on deformable shape models. The results were evaluated quantitatively using real CT data and ground truth, which indicates the robustness and the practical applicability of the framework.