Semi-automatic surface and volume mesh generation for subject-specific biomedical geometries.

Abstract

An overview of surface and volume mesh generation techniques for creating valid meshes to carry out biomedical flows is provided. The methods presented are designed for robust numerical modelling of biofluid flow through subject-specific geometries. The applications of interest are haemodynamics in blood vessels and air flow in upper human respiratory tract. The methods described are designed to minimize distortion to a given domain boundary. They are also designed to generate a triangular surface mesh first and then volume mesh (tetrahedrons) with high quality surface and volume elements. For blood flow applications, a simple procedure to generate a boundary layer mesh is also described. The methods described here are semi-automatic in nature because of the fact that the geometries are complex, and automation of the procedures may be possible if high quality scans are used.