Implicit representations of the human intestines for surgery simulations

Abstract

Abstract . In this paper, we propose a modeling of the intestines by implicit surfaces for abdominalsurgery simulation. The diculty of such a simulation comes from the animation of the intestines. Asa matter of fact, the intestines are a very long tube that is not isotropically elastic, and that bendsover itself at various spots, creating multiple self-contacts.We use a multiple component model for the intestines: The rst component is a mechanical modelof their axis; the second component is a speci c sphere-based model to manage collisions and self-collisions; and the third component is a skinning model to de ne their volume. This paper focuseson the better representation for skinning the intestines. We compare two implicit models: Surfacesde ned by point-skeletons and convolution surfaces.A direct application of this simulation is the training of a typical surgical gesture to move apart theintestines in order to reach certain areas of the abdomen.Keywords: Surgical simulation, virtual reality, implicit surfaces, real-time computation, applica-tion to medical domain.