Image Processing and Mesh Generation
CT scan data of a 79-year-old male with a normal airway was obtained using a multi-slice scanner (Phillips GEMINI TF 16 PET/CT, The Netherlands).
Simpleware ScanIP was used for 3D reconstruction and analysis of the DICOM files. A binarized median filter was applied to the entire image set to reduce noise; a noise curvature flow filter was applied to encourage intra-region smoothing and to inhibit inter-region smoothing, removing noise and enhancing greyscale boundaries. 36 individual anatomical structures of tissues, bones, cartilage, ligaments, muscles and membranes, were segmented. A recursive Gaussian smoothing was applied to the segmented structures to further reduce noise levels and attenuate sharp edges. The inferior side of the model was cropped to near the vocal folds to reduce computational FEA demands.