title: Soft tissue modelling through autowaves for surgery simulation.
abstract: Modelling of soft tissue deformation is of great importance to virtual reality based surgery simulation. This paper presents a new methodology for simulation of soft tissue deformation by drawing an analogy between autowaves and soft tissue deformation. The potential energy stored in a soft tissue as a result of a deformation caused by an external force is propagated among mass points of the soft tissue by non-linear autowaves. The novelty of the methodology is that (i) autowave techniques are established to describe the potential energy distribution of a deformation for extrapolating internal forces, and (ii) non-linear materials are modelled with non-linear autowaves other than geometric non-linearity. Integration with a haptic device has been achieved to simulate soft tissue deformation with force feedback. The proposed methodology not only deals with large-range deformations, but also accommodates isotropic, anisotropic and inhomogeneous materials by simply changing diffusion coefficients.
authors.affiliation: Robotics and Mechatronics Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University, P.O. Box 31, Clayton Campus, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia. Yongmin.Zhong@eng.monash.edu.au
authors.forename: Yongmin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: Bijan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Shirinzadeh
authors.forename: Gursel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Alici
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D032701:Biomimetics / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003238:Connective Tissue / Q000502:physiology*; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000379:methods; D004548:Elasticity; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D013664:Teaching Materials; D014584:User-Computer Interface