A robust method for automatic identification of landmarks on surface models of the pelvis

The recognition of bony landmarks of the pelvis is a required operation in patient-specific orthopedics, subject-specific biomechanics or morphometrics. A fully automatic detection is preferable to a subjective and time-consuming manual identification. In this paper, a new approach, called the iterative tangential plane (ITP) method, for fully automatic identification of landmarks on surface models of the pelvis is introduced. The method includes the landmarks to construct the two most established anatomical reference frames of the pelvis: the anterior pelvic plane (APP) coordinate system and superior inferior spine plane (SISP) coordinate system. The ITP method proved to be robust against the initial alignment of the pelvis in space. A comparison to a manual identification was performed that showed minor but significant (p