Template Model Generation
This is an umbrella issue:
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#11 (closed) Export operation
Target Outcome: Template assembled anatomical model exported for finite element analysis in FEBio format (.feb, XML based text file) including mesh definitions (nodes, elements, surfaces; node, element, face sets), e.g., sets defined to assign tissue template constitutive models (placeholders for rigid – bones; deformable – other tissue), sets defined to assign interactions between tissue (ties, contact), and sets defined to assign loading and boundary conditions (e.g., for rigid objects)
Input: Finite element meshes of all tissues to be included in the template model as triangulated surface (rigid objects) or tetrahedral volume meshes (deformable objects)
Features: (for defining node and element groups)
- Interactive selection tools should allow to easily select only surface elements and not include internal nodes/elements.
- Ability to transfer groups to similar geometric volume, with different mesh density, or small changes to some elements in the mesh, i.e., potentially by projection of the group or by saving set definition as a binary field.
- Creating an element group from a node group and vice-versa (see Salome group tools).
- Projecting a group from one tissue part to another. For example if one creates a group on the patella cartilage, he/she may want to “project” the field onto the patella bone to know which nodes on the patella bone will be connected to the patella cartilage.
- Boolean operations between groups on the same mesh, e.g., subtract all nodes in group a from group b.
- User designation of the groups as a tie or contact groups and which part it will connect with as a generalized annotation. For example, a user may create a group on the ACL and designate it as a tie group to the femur bone.
- Warnings for overlapping tie/tie groups or tie/contact groups on the same part, e.g., a node in tie group is also connected to an element in a contact group (and the ability to remove it from one of the groups). Contact/contact overlap is okay.
- Automated group creation tools using relationship between two tissue parts/meshes – for example proximity, normal, etc. Relations can be labeled/annotated as ties/contacts automatically, generated from the group info.
- Interactive or automated landmark selection to define local coordinate systems, origins/axes, and create sets for definition of loading and boundary conditions, e.g. for rigid bodies.
Edited by David Thompson