Papers for

dental imaging software developers

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Deep learning models compared for dental X ray image segmentation

Deep Learning-based Semantic Segmentation of Dental Radiographs: Comparative Evaluation of PSPNet, DeepLabv3, UNet, and UNet++

Abstract: Accurate and efficient analysis of dental radiographs has become increasingly important for disease diagnosis and clinical decision making. In particular, dental radiographs segmentation plays a critical role as it is challenging due to several reasons, such as low contrast, noise in the images, variations in the image quality, etc. Previous studies have primarily addressed these challenges using convolutional neural networks (CNN)-based models. However, direct comparison of these segmentation models is still challenging due to the variations among the experimental settings. Therefore, we mainly compared four segmentation models, including Pyramid Scene Parsing Network (PSPNet), DeepLabV3, UNet, and UNet++, through a fair, controlled experimentation setting under varying conditions such as image sizes and batch sizes. For this, we used 1269 dental radiography images, and prior to training, we implemented a series of preprocessing techniques. To assess the models, we used several metrics, including Dice coefficient (DICE), Intersection over Union (IoU), accuracy, precision, training and validation losses. According to our results, UNet++ demonstrated the highest IoU score of 0.6719, and a DICE value of 0.7869, showing superior results in terms of segmentation, specifically when configured with an image size of 300x300 and a batch size of 16. In addition, we also explored the effect of image resolutions and batch sizes on model performance and accuracy under different architectures. Therefore, this study provides insights into the strengths of different segmentation models and the potential of deep learning-based semantic segmentation methods for improving automated dental radiograph analysis.

Sat 10 OctComputer Vision and Pattern RecognitionArtificial Intelligence
The gist
Analyzing dental X rays helps dentists find problems, but the images can be hard to interpret because they are unclear or noisy. The authors compared four popular deep learning methods that can automatically outline important parts in dental images to see which works best. They tested the methods fairly on 1269 images, adjusting image size and training batch size to find the best settings. They found that a model called UNet++ performed the best in accurately segmenting parts of the dental images. This research helps improve automated tools for dental care by showing which methods give the best results.
Open → 2610.15061v1

Anatomical density guides sharper 3D dental scans from fewer X-rays

AD-GS: Anatomical Density-guided 3D Gaussian Splatting for Sparse-View Dental CBCT Reconstruction

Abstract: Sparse-view Cone-Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) reconstruction is essential for reducing radiation dose and scan effort, but remains underconstrained due to limited projection information. Recent 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS)-based CBCT reconstruction methods rely on gradient-driven densification, which becomes unstable under sparse acquisition and often leads to over-smoothed structures. We propose AD-GS, an Anatomical Density-guided 3D Gaussian Splatting framework that formulates Gaussian densification as an attenuation-aware Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling process. By interpreting Gaussians as samples from an underlying anatomical attenuation distribution, AD-GS adaptively concentrates representation capacity in high-attenuation regions, enabling sharper structural boundaries under sparse projections. To further constrain reconstruction, we incorporate a semantic regularization based on zero-shot features from Segment Anything in Medical Images, enforcing multi-view consistency through semantic priors. Experiments on the ToothFairy3 dental CBCT dataset demonstrate that AD-GS achieves superior structural fidelity and boundary preservation compared with existing 3DGS-based approaches under sparse-view settings within the dental and maxillofacial setting. Code is available at https://github.com/yulinjiaxue/AD-GS-BMVC2026.

Sat 10 OctComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The gist
Taking 3D X-ray images of teeth usually requires many pictures, which exposes patients to more radiation. The authors created a new method that uses knowledge about how different tissues block X-rays to improve image quality even when fewer pictures are taken. Their approach also uses smart computer vision to keep the images consistent and clear. This results in sharper dental CT images with less radiation, which can help dentists see details better.
Open → 2610.14963v1

AgenTeeth reduces errors in dental X-ray language models

AgenTeeth: A Model-Agnostic Framework for Suppressing Hallucination in Frozen Vision-Language Models on Dental X-Rays via Tool Evidence Injection

Abstract: Vision-language models (VLMs) remain largely unreliable on panoramic dental radiographs and can rely on learned anatomical priors rather than evidence in the image. This is particularly problematic for tooth localization and spatial reasoning, and fine-tuned dental VLMs can retain the same spatial biases. We present AgenTeeth, a model-agnostic, tool-augmented framework that grounds frozen VLMs using seven specialized dental vision experts. A question-aware orchestrator selects the relevant tools, whose detections are mapped to FDI tooth numbers or anatomical regions and returned as structured findings together with annotated image overlays. A fresh synthesis call then answers the question using this evidence, without fine-tuning the underlying VLM. On MMOral-OPG-Bench, AgenTeeth improves four backbone VLMs by 12.9-23.0 percentage points over their baselines. Our strongest configuration reaches 65.66% on open-ended VQA, compared with 45.35% for OralGPT-Plus. The advantage also holds at matched scale: a frozen Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct with AgenTeeth reaches 48.11%, exceeding OralGPT-Plus built on the same backbone after supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement learning for tool use. We release the framework, all seven expert models, and a dentist-annotated dataset for alveolar bone-loss detection in panoramic radiographs.

Tue 15 SeptComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The gist
Dental X-ray images are hard for computer programs that understand both images and text, often leading them to guess based on common patterns rather than what’s actually in the image. The authors created AgenTeeth, a framework that improves these programs by adding specialized tools that detect specific teeth and parts of the mouth. These tools provide clear evidence to the language model, helping it answer questions more accurately without changing the original model. Testing showed that AgenTeeth greatly improved performance on dental imaging questions compared to existing methods.
Open → 2609.17800v1

Automatic graph-based system improves skeletal malocclusion grading accuracy

Morphological Decoupling-Based Skeletal Classification for Clinical Assessment of Malocclusion

Abstract: Malocclusion skeletal grading is a fundamental task in orthodontics, critical for diagnosis and treatment planning. Traditionally, cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is used for visual measurement, and the reconstructed lateral cephalograms are handed over to expert dentists for diagnosis. However, manual review is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and subject to inter-operator variability. Therefore, an automatic CBCT-based system is needed for reliable malocclusion skeletal grading. In this case, we develop TeethGNN, a novel graph-based framework designed to combine CBCT image features with morphological information for accurate and efficient malocclusion grading. TeethGNN utilizes a decoupled learnable decoder to directly predict key morphological indicators from CBCT images, eliminating the need for manual measurements. These morphological features are then fused with image features using a graph neural network (GNN), which effectively models the relationships between the modalities. To further enhance robustness and calibration, we introduce a collaborative calibration strategy. This strategy combines multi-scale graph adversarial perturbation for explicit calibration and nonlinear topological graph calibration for implicit confidence adjustment. Extensive experiments and ablation studies on our collected clinical dataset demonstrate that our malocclusion measurement system achieves 77.08\% in accuracy and 89.61\% in AUC, outperforming the compared state-of-the-art methods. These results validate the effectiveness of graph-based multimodal fusion and collaborative calibration in improving malocclusion grading performance. Our system shows strong potential for advancing computer-aided orthodontic diagnosis, providing an accurate and reliable solution for vision-based clinical measurement and diagnosis.

Wed 9 SeptComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The gist
Malocclusion means teeth and jaws are misaligned, and checking this is important for dental care. The usual way uses 3D X-rays and expert dentists, which takes a lot of time and can vary between experts. The researchers created TeethGNN, a computer program that uses 3D X-ray images to automatically find key shapes and combine this information with image details to diagnose malocclusion more accurately. Their method works better than existing ones and can help dentists by providing faster, more reliable assessments.
Open → 2609.09801v1