Karl Reining

Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Colorado Health Science Dept

“Preparing Visible Human Type Data for Finite Element Analysis”

Volumetric data sets (such as those created from the Visible Human Project and subsequent efforts) can be used to create realistic texture mapped polygonal models for both haptic and graphic rendering. They can also be used to generate volumetric meshes for Finite Element Analysis (FEA).  The first step toward preparing the volume data for the production of 3-D models is to segment the voxels into distinct anatomic structures. This has the natural extension of adding material properties to the voxels.   A less-natural extension is the inclusion of structural sharing information:  does the surface of one structure attach to or slide against its neighbor?  Another area of interest is compact methods of representing anisotropic properties such as muscle fiber direction. This talk discusses embedding information relevant to analysis and display into the volume data, with a particular bent toward surgical simulation.