Planning, simulation and documentation of interventions in maxillofacial surgery require high resolution soft tissue information of the human face. Topometric data may be gained with various methods (CT, optical, contact), and these all have their advantages and drawbacks. We developed a topometry system using pulsed holography to capture the surface of objects.
In topometry it is necessary to avoid movement of the object during measurement. For static objects this is hardly of influence, however, movement artefacts are the primary cause of errors in measurements of living or moving objects. In this case either the recording time needs to be sufficiently short, or the object needs to be immobilized as much as possible. Most current topometric techniques feature overall capture times ranging around or just below one second. Although their nominal accuracy, which is defined on static objects, might be good, the surface quality is often questionable. Therefore, great efforts are being made to speed up the measurement.
