Abstract
A method for automated landmark extraction from three-dimensional whole body scanned data extracts feature points as landmarks from a plurality of point clouds obtained from a three-dimensional whole body scanner, without pre-making the landmarks on a human body before scanning. The system includes: (1) Silhouette analysis, which projects three-dimensional body scanned data onto a two-dimensional surface and observes the variations in curvature and depth; (2) Minimum circumference, which uses the variations of the circumference of body parts to define the locations of the landmarks and feature lines; (3) Gray-scale detection, which converts the color information of human body from RGB values into gray-scale values to locate the landmarks with greater variations in brightness; and (4) Human-body contour plot, which simulates the sense of touch to locate landmarks by finding the prominent and concave parts on the human body.