Objective: Manual quantitative analysis of facial parameters on photographs during smile and speech is a difficult and time-consuming job, especially when digital photographs are used and data are stored in a digital database. Since there is no comprehensive and user-friendly software package, we decided to design one. Our aim was to develop a software program for analyzing the parameters related to lip-tooth relationships and other facial landmarks on photographs taken during various facial expressions.
Methods: The "Smile Analyzer" runs on Microsoft Windows. It was designed using VisualBasic.NET and the ADO.NET was used for developing its Microsoft Access database. This program is capable of analyzing many parameters on many patients' photographs just by adding patients and their images to it and defining as many as variables that one desires to measure, although 19 more common variables are previously defined as default variables. The results are easily printable. The software can also export data in either MS Excel or PDF format. Data is transferable to other programs such as SPSS for Windows for statistical analysis.
Conclusions: "Smile Analyzer" is useful for measuring purposes on all digital images in any format. Thus, this software is a useful tool for conducting studies in which measuring is needed. In fact the application of “Smile Analyzer” is more than just analyzing lip-tooth relations on facial photographs as it can be employed for measuring cephalometric parameters on digital lateral cephalograms.