functionality for shape and appereance models in Febio

[petr-henys]

Hi,
Statistical bone models allow to generate a new spatial distribution of bone appearance and shape to augment the original dataset. Derived FE models are tedious to prepare especially when dealing with a higher number of models. The new bone shape can be expressed using a deformation gradient and therefore the shape can be introduced into the FE model implicitly by integrating variational forms on the reference region. This eliminates the need to create a new FE mesh, define boundary conditions and so on.

The user would be responsible for the properties of the deformation gradient (i.e., smoothness and bijectivity). The deformation gradient could be considered in Febio as a user-defined tensor space field, similar to the heterogeneous parameter mapping.

Additionally, this could be a first interesting link to ShapeWorks a fantastic program for statistical modelling of bone density and shape.

Petr

[SteveMaas1978]

Hi Petr,

This is an interesting idea. Do you have any more information or references regarding these variational formulations to integrate the deformation gradient map? If it's not too complicated, I'm happy to look into this and may add a tool (in FEBio Studio) that implements this.

Thanks,

Steve