Digital models of humans are frequently used in computer games, virtual reality
applications, or the special effects movie industry. In this talk I will give
one example of how medical applications can benefit from virtual humans, too.
Through physics-based elastic deformation we fit a template head and skull model
to a given set of 3D face scans and computed tomography (CT) head scans,
respectively. From these fits we derive statistical models of human head shapes,
skull shapes, and the connection between the two (facial tissue thickness). The
resulting models allow us to estimate possible face/head shapes for a given
skull, and to estimate a person's skull from a surface scan of the face.