Raw Data - A Freeware, Equitable Approach to Dental Topographic Analysis

Dental topographic analysis has proved a valuable tool for quantifying dental morphology. Established workflows use proprietary software for pre-processing dental surfaces, rendering the method expensive and inaccessible. This study explores the use of freeware pre-processing alternatives.
We tested 4 decimation tools and 13 smoothing tools across 7 different freeware packages. Although surfaces generated via proprietary software could not be replicated, it was possible to obtain statistically similar topographic metrics in freeware to those obtained via proprietary means. Based on this investigation, we present a freeware workflow, via which researchers may conduct dental topographic analysis equitably, and with the expectation that their data will be comparable to that obtained via established proprietary methods.

Surface files were initially downloaded from Morphosource.org, a 3D data repository - published under a Creative Commons - Attribution license (CC-BY-NC-4.0). Files were created by Doug Boyer of Stony Brook University, New York. MicroCT scans were taken of teeth, and these scans were subsequently segmented in Avizo, generating 3D surface files.

Surface files were rotated and any stray data points removed, and underwent simplification and smoothing with several different tools and settings. Surfaces were then imported to the molaR package in Rstudio, where morphological metrics were obtained. These metrics were exported to .csv format, and statistical analysis (Shapiro-Wilks, Wlicoxon Signed Rank and Student's T tests) was conducted on them.