Methods and apparatuses for creating a statistical average model of an enamel-dentine junction

An apparatus for processing image data of a tooth for producing a physical tooth model that simulates structural and optical characteristics of the tooth, the apparatus comprising:

• a Computerized Tomography (CT) machine configured to acquire CT image data of a tooth;
• a computer configured to create a statistical average model of an enamel-dentine junction of the tooth by
• segmenting the CT image data to obtain a surface of the enamel-dentine junction;
• segmenting the obtained surface using a curvature-based clustering algorithm to remove a bottom of the enamel-dentine junction, wherein a triangular grid model is used to emulate the enamel-dentine junction, and wherein said curvature-based clustering algorithm comprises computing normal vectors at the vertices of the triangular grid model and computing curvatures at the vertices of the triangular grid model based on these normal vectors;
• spherical-parameterizing, by means of spherical harmonic analysis, the surface of the enamel-dentine junction after removal of the bottom;
• and
• aligning different samples of the tooth to obtain the statistical average model;
• wherein the statistical average model of the enamel-dentine junction is used to produce the physical tooth model of the tooth, so that the tooth model simulates structural and optical characteristics of the tooth based.