Chapter 11 Skinning

A useful technique for creating anatomical and biomechanical models is to attach a passive mesh to an underlying set of dynamically active bodies so that it deforms in accordance with the motion of those bodies. ArtiSynth allows meshes to be attached, or “skinned”, to collections of both rigid bodies and FEM models, facilitating the creation of structures that are either embedded in, or connect or envelope a set of underlying components. Such approaches are well known in the computer animation community, where they are widely used to represent the deformable tissue surrounding a “skeleton” of articulated rigid bodies, and have more recently been applied to biomechanics [17].

One application of skinning is to create a continuous skin surrounding an underlying set of anatomical components. For example, for modeling the human airway, a disparate set of models describing the tongue, jaw, palate and pharynx can be connected together with a surface skin to form a seamless airtight mesh (Figure 11.1), as described in [24]. This then provides a uniform boundary for handling air or fluid interactions associated with tasks such as speech or swallowing.

ArtiSynth provides support for “skinning” a mesh over an underlying set of master bodies, consisting of rigid bodies and/or FEM models, such that the mesh vertices deform in response to changes in the position, orientation and shape of the master bodies.