Computational Modeling for CAD Data Integration into 3D Image Data

摘要

Biomedical problems tend to involve domains which are geometrically complex over a range of scales. Much effort has gone into developing tools for generating computational meshes automatically from medical scan data (such as MRI and CT), allowing the easy creation of patient-specific models. One obvious enhancement to this capability is to be able to interactively modify the geometry; this would for example allow the prior determination of the effect of certain surgical procedures. This paper will report on the application of new techniques allowing the insertion of CAD models into the original scan data. The paper will focus on the effect of certain surgical procedures, and a number of examples that cover different applications within the Computational Biomechanics field will be presented. The objective of this work is to combine CAD and image data to allow the introduction of additional geometrical elements into the patient-specific computational model derived from the medical scan data. A range of case studies will demonstrate the potential of the approach for the generation of patient-specific FE models based on 3D clinical scans. In spite of their complexity and sophistication, full FE simulations could be carried out on commonly available PCs, opening up a wide range of previously difficult or intractable problems to numerical analysis, including patient-specific implant design.