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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Biomechanics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1514568
This article is part of the Research Topic Motion Tracking and Deformation Analysis in Biomechanics View all 12 articles

Non-contact tracking of shoulder bones using ultrasound and stereophotogrammetry

Provisionally accepted
Ahmed Sewify Ahmed Sewify 1,2*Maxence Lavaill Maxence Lavaill 3Dermot O'Rourke Dermot O'Rourke 3Maria Antico Maria Antico 4Peter Pivonka Peter Pivonka 3Davide Fontanarosa Davide Fontanarosa 2Saulo Martelli Saulo Martelli 3
  • 1 Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
  • 2 School of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  • 3 School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  • 4 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Purpose: We explored the integration of 3D ultrasound (US) imaging with motion capture technology for non-invasively tracking bones of the shoulder district during normal activity. Our study aimed to demonstrate ex-vivo the proposed 3D US method's feasibility and accuracy of tracking shoulder bones in a controlled cadaveric shoulder positioned in various arm elevations (low, mid and high). Method: We registered previously acquired full bone shapes to spatially small bony surface patches segmented from 3D US. The bone registration approach used was based on in-silico analyses that investigated the effects of different - 1) registration algorithms (Iterative-Closest-Point -ICP, and Coherent Point Drift -CPD) and 2) initial estimate levels of the bone model pose relative to the targeted final bone pose - on the overall registration efficiency and accuracy in a controlled environment. Results: CPD provided the highest accuracy in the simulation at the cost of 8x longer computation compared to ICP. The RMSE errors were < 1 mm for the humerus and scapula at all elevations. Ex-vivo, the CPD registration errors were (Humerus = 2 mm and Scapula =13.9 mm), (Humerus = 7.2 mm and Scapula =16.8 mm) and (Humerus = 14.28 mm and Scapula =27.5 mm), for low, medium and high elevations respectively. Conclusion: In summary, we demonstrated the feasibility and accuracy of tracking shoulder bones with 3D US in a simulation and a cadaveric experiment. We discovered that CPD may be a more suitable registration method for the task than ICP. We also discussed that 3D US with motion capture technology is very promising for dynamic bone tracking, but the US technology may not be ready for the task yet. frontiersin.org

    Keywords: Bone tracking, ultrasound, 3D-ultrasound, Bone registration, ex-vivo, Stereophotogrammetry, Iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm

    Received: 21 Oct 2024; Accepted: 20 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Sewify, Lavaill, O'Rourke, Antico, Pivonka, Fontanarosa and Martelli. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ahmed Sewify, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.