Application of SOFA Framework for Physics-Based Simulation of Deformable Human Anatomy of Nasal Cavity

Abstract

Surgical medicine is one of the most radical approaches for the treatment of numerous types of diseases. Recently broad application has taken the direction of computational surgery that aims to improve the quality of treatment through the use of computer tools. The use of computational surgery in rhinoplasty is important due to the fact that the results of the intervention directly affect the geometry of the nasal cavity and, as a consequence, the aerodynamic parameters of the nose. In turn, these parameters determine the functional characteristics of the patient’s nasal cavity. In this paper, we have focused on modeling the deformation of anatomical structures using SOFA framework software library considering tetrahedron finite element modeling (FEM), hexahedron FEM, triangle FEM and mesh spring force fields. The simulation results indicate the high functionality of the SOFA framework for modeling the deformation of the airway in rhinosurgical interventions. These results could further be applied for modeling the deformation of the anatomical structure taking into account the change in the topology of a 3D model to simulate such surgical procedures as a cut.