Handbook of Real-World Applications in Modeling and Simulation

Chapter Seven

A Review of Mesh Generation for Medical Simulators

Michel A. Audette

Andrey N. Chernikov

Nikos P. Chrisochoides

7.1 Introduction and Learning Objectives

Medical simulation is the application of computers to synthesizing an anatomical response to a simulated therapy. In particular, surgery simulation uses a software program to synthesize tissue response to virtual surgical tools, typically (but not exclusively) a mechanical response to cutting or manipulation. This behavior can be thought of as a trade-off between material fidelity and computation time, whose weighted emphasis on one or the other can be characterized as a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum we have predictive simulation, which consists of highly faithful off-line computations used by expert surgeons to predict the outcome of, and optimize, an intervention, on the basis of an anatomical model of the patient derived from that individual's preoperative image dataset. At the other end of the spectrum, the objective of interactive simulation is to offer a means of training surgical residents in order to improve their skill without risk to a real patient, by way of a haptic device manipulated by the user to position a virtual surgical tool, while producing a force feedback that simulates tissue resistance and a real-time graphical rendering of an anatomical model at that point in simulated time. Figure 7.1 illustrates some commonly used haptic devices. Typically, the biomechanics engine used to achieve ...