Most studies investigating the biomechanics of injury are limited by a paucity of data about the physical characteristics of the subject before the injury occurred. This is particularly the case with live human subjects from real-life cases, where little data except age, gender, height and weight have been available to date. With regard to the injuries themselves, previously available data has generally been descriptive and of insufficient granularity and anatomic specificity to provide insight into the path of force loading through the surrounding tissues or the mechanism of injury. Three-dimensional medical imaging has recently become part of the standard evaluation of injured subjects and a growing pool of this data is becoming available to the biomechanical research community. When reviewed in conjunction with detailed crash and vehicle information, this data can provide invaluable information regarding the baseline physical characteristics that may have affected the subject’s injury tolerance as well as insight into injury mechanism. Taken out of the proper context or with improper image processing, portions of this imaging data can be misleading.

The objective of this study is to review changes in medical imaging technology over the past two decades as well as changes in its utilization for the standard evaluation of injured patients. Analysis of 3D medical imaging data for biomechanical studies requires image data processing beyond that used during interpretation for clinical purposes;​ these processes will be reviewed so that members of the biomechanical research community can better understand the potential uses and limitations of this data. The argument will be made for the research community to adopt common standards and procedures. Individual case studies will demonstrate the conditions under which pre-injury body composition data can be extracted from post- injury 3D medical imaging data. Pooled data will demonstrate the association that exists between these body composition data and observed injury tolerance. The implications of this data for the design and validation of finite element models capable of accurately predicting body tolerances to injury will be discussed.