Welcome!

With support from the American Association of Orthodontists Foundation (AAOF), nine of the eleven known collections of longitudinal craniofacial growth records in the United States and Canada have joined together to create this web site and its underlying numerical database. Our purpose is to make representative materials from the participating collections available for viewing and further investigation by clinicians, craniofacial investigators, students of human growth, and interested members of the public.

These collections represent the work of hundreds of investigators. They have been gathered, cataloged, and studied over a period of more than seventy-five years. The materials they contain are literally irreplaceable. Each of the collections is independent from the others and has pursued its own sampling and data collection strategies. Taken together, these different and complementary strategies have produced a rich longitudinal record of craniofacial development among children who did not receive orthodontic treatment. Available documentation of the growth process in the several collections includes skull x-ray images of various sorts, hand-wrist films, dental radiographs, facial photographs, and study casts as well as written records on the physical and educational development of children of varied ethnicities and growth patterns.

The contributing collections, working individually, have produced most of the information that is available in the contemporary orthodontic literature on longitudinal craniofacial growth in untreated children. Now, by merging data from the several collections, we hope to make possible further collaborative studies that will enrich and refine our knowledge of craniofacial growth in untreated children and adolescents.

During the initial phase of this project, which is now nearing completion, we have confined ourselves primarily to the collection of lateral and frontal cephalograms. Presently available on the site are more than 20,000 digital images including 12,000 lateral cephalograms and over 3000 frontal (PA) cephalograms generated at different ages from 842 cases, gathered from 9 different Collections. Summary statistics on case distribution by sex/gender, age and Angle Class may be found by clicking on “ Statistics” in the About menu.

This entire site is a continually developing resource for orthodontic teaching and research. Its primary role is to serve as a repository for longitudinal records of all types with sufficient numerical documentation to facilitate useful search and querying.

Getting Started

Clicking on a Collection Name in the Collections menu takes you to a page with three tabs, where you can see a description of the Collection, a detailed Inventory, and a condensed Inventory. This is the place to start if you want to browse through the images. The items on the Help menu provide more information on browsing and selecting images for your own research project.

In order to properly measure anatomic landmark locations or distances between landmarks on the AAOF Legacy Collection lateral cephalograms, the scale of the images must be known. This document describes several methods for deriving image scales, and explains some of the differences amongst the various Collections.

The choices on the Search menu allow you to search for Subjects by Collection, Age, Sex, and Angle Class. You can also select from a subset of Subjects by Cephalometric measurements and Changes in Measurements.

Use of Materials from This Site

In creating and sustaining this site, AAOF and the participating collections seek to make possible the widest use of its unique materials in education and research. To that end, the entire content of the site is made available without cost for on-line use and downloading by all members of the orthodontic community. Other investigators and members of the public may also request permission to download site materials contingent upon agreement by the collection that was the original source of the materials in question. The pixel resolution of the images on the site is considered sufficient for most practical uses and equals or exceeds that at which clinical head film analyses are usually performed on digital images. However, higher resolution versions of selected images may be desired for specialized uses in research and publication. In such cases, interested parties should contact the collection(s) of origin directly, being aware that some the collections may find it necessary to charge for such higher resolution images.

When images obtained from this site are used in presentations or publications, the AAOF and the collection of origin should be cited appropriately.


  • Now available - The Forsyth Twin Collection has had 90 additional subjects added. The new records available now!
  • Note that the Burlington Growth Collection requires completing an additional form for access to the full resolution images. Please use the Contact Form for additional information.
  • Sample 3D Study Casts are now available in the Michigan, Oregon, and Burlington Growth Collections. Use the Detailed Inventory Tab and set Study Casts to Yes.

Animation

Michigan Growth Subject 02101
Animation of 12 Timepoints Over 12 Years


AAOF Overlays

Landmark Overlays and Locations


3D Study Cast Display

Play the movie to see a demo of rotating a 3D Study Cast. Click on the link above to view and manipulate a 3D Study Cast in your browser - Requires a current browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari) with WebGL Support