Soft Tissue Modelling from 3D Scanned Data

Abstract

Human body 3D scanners are becoming a mature technology that generates accurate static photo-realistic 3D models of real human beings. However the data collected allow only the construction of the outer surface of the body. In this paper we describe how from 3D surface data we generate 3D volumetric meshes of soft tissues suitable for the finite element method (FEM). We then deform these meshes using our implementation of the FEM for 3D volumetric meshes. Finally we present some experimental results of the deformation of a human body and detail a methodology to evaluate the distribution of soft tissue layers from a 3D scan of a specific individual.