Dental Imaging

Imaging in dentistry has been limited generally to traditional applications of radiography and photography. Recent technical advances stimulated by parallel development of computers include digital subtraction radiology and magnetic resonance imaging. All of these modalities share certain fundamental constraints which limit effectiveness in biomedical applications. In sequence of encounter these are (1) ambiguous signal definition, (2) inappropriate data sampling strategy, (3) inadequate signal strength relative to intrinsic sources of noise, and (4) misinterpretation of sampled data. Controlled tests suggest that the first two of these factors largely control performance of common dental diagnostic tasks.