Bringing the Human from Real to Virtual
Since the dawn of civilization humans have sought new methods to improve quality of life when part of their body could not function as required. Direct study of the human body and its many functional parts has revealed many of the engineering feats that nature has built into the human body via thousands of years of trial and error.
Consider the big toe—with every step we take the big toe is the last part of the foot to push off, and while doing so it carries about 40% of the body’s weight. This stubby digit is crucial in our ability to walk, run, and even maintain balance. By understanding structures like the big toe, doctors today are better prepared to offer solutions for people who experience impaired mobility, disease, birth defects, accidents and more.
Scientists stumbled upon the world’s oldest known prosthesis when they discovered an Egyptian mummy with a fake big toe.
In the year 2000 scientists stumbled upon the world’s oldest known prosthesis when they discovered an Egyptian mummy with a fake big toe. Since the discovery, researchers have conducted multiple tests with toeless volunteers, having them walk in Egyptian sandals while wearing a replica of the ancient toe. Amazingly the prosthetic toe allowed one of the volunteers up to 87% of the flexion of his real big toe on the other foot.
Though a great feat (in the world of feet), we can only imagine the time and effort to create the hundreds of prototypes it may have taken the Egyptians to develop this one device. Even today, most doctors and device developers take a similar approach when developing modern medical solutions through testing, time, and good old trial and error.
From Image to Simulation
Advances in medical imaging have opened the door to a new era of engineering, enabling precise multiphysics simulation of humans and other natural forms (known as biomimicry). This is a revolution in engineering, breaking the dependency on CAD-driven structures and product development environments with little understanding of the humans who will use or host them.
It is now possible to:
- Rapidly take conventional medical image data.
- Convert it directly to 3D meshes.
- Then import directly into solvers such as Abaqus to optimize the design of medical devices, consumer products and 3D printed prostheses.
SIMULIA in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Materialise, Inc., and Synopsys Inc. recently hosted a first-of-its-kind, world-wide seminar and workshop series titled “Advanced Biomedical Modeling: From Image to Simulation.” Each full-day workshop showcased applications and provided hands-on training, demonstrating the seamless integration between image segmentation tools such as MIMICS by Materialise, Simpleware ScanIP by Synopsys, Inc., and SIMULIA’s Abaqus Unified FEA portfolio.
Attendees were shown the latest applications from local biomedical and cardiovascular experts and learned how to develop custom human simulation models directly from CT/MRI scan data and perform predictive analysis. All were shown the complete workflow to take a heart model from start to finish—beginning with 2D Scans and ending with a dynamic, 3D beating heart model.
What to learn more?
Visit: Realistic Simulation for Life Sciences
