Soft Tissue Simulation for Computer Animation of Vertebrates

Forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, skeleton model, articulated structure, deformation model, physically-based simulation, layered construction, biomechanical models, finite element theory

Frequent topic of current research studies and commercial applications is a modeling, animation and simulation of various parts of a human body. A biomedical applications in this area usually focuses in small part of a bod (selected organ) and simulates its functionality with high degree of accuracy using complex models. On the contrary the computer animation concentrates on simplicity of the model and high computing speed. Usually so called ``inverse solution'' to the motion description is used. The animator defines the trajectory of selected parts of the model; from such motion description the resulting muscle, fatty tissue and finally skin deformations are computed.

Frequent topic of current research studies and commercial applications is a modeling, animation and simulation of various parts of a human body. A biomedical applications in this area usually focuses in small part of a bod (selected organ) and simulates its functionality with high degree of accuracy using complex models. On the contrary the computer animation concentrates on simplicity of the model and high computing speed. Usually so called ``inverse solution'' to the motion description is used. The animator defines the trajectory of selected parts of the model; from such motion description the resulting muscle, fatty tissue and finally skin deformations are computed. This paper reviews currently used techniques for computer animation of vertebrates and proposes the model of a human arm, which allows motion description in ``natural way''. The model describes motion in terms of muscle activities. Resulting posture changes and surface deformations are obtained via simulation of muscle response due to activation. The model is simply extensible for simulation of other parts of the body.