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Abstract:
Background: Interest in the placing of landmarks and subsequent morphometric analyses of shape for 3D data
has increased with the increasing accessibility of computed tomography (CT) scanners. However, current computer
programs for this task suffer from various practical drawbacks. We present here a free software tool that overcomes
many of these problems.
Results: The TINA Manual Landmarking Tool was developed for the digitization of 3D data sets. It enables the
generation of a modifiable 3D volume rendering display plus matching orthogonal 2D cross-sections from DICOM
files. The object can be rotated and axes defined and fixed. Predefined lists of landmarks can be loaded and the
landmarks identified within any of the representations. Output files are stored in various established formats,
depending on the preferred evaluation software.
Conclusions: The software tool presented here provides several options facilitating the placing of landmarks on
3D objects, including volume rendering from DICOM files, definition and fixation of meaningful axes, easy import,
placement, control, and export of landmarks, and handling of large datasets. The TINA Manual Landmark Tool runs
under Linux and can be obtained for free from http://www.tina-vision.net/tarballs/.
