Fast soft tissue deformation with tetrahedral mass spring model for maxillofacial surgery planning systems

Abstract

Maxillofacial surgery simulation and planning is an extremely challenging area of research combining medical imagery, computer graphics and mathematical modelling. In maxillofacial surgery abnormalities of the skeleton of the head are treat by skull remodelling. Since the human face plays a key role in interpersonal relationships, people are very sensitive to changes to their outlook. Therefore planning of the operation and reliable prediction of the facial changes are very important. Recently, the use of 3D image-based surgery planning systems is more and more accepted in this field. Although the bone-related planning concepts and methods are maturing, prediction of soft tissue deformation needs further fundamental research. In this paper we present a soft tissue simulator that uses a fast tetrahedral mass spring system to calculate soft tissue deformation due to bone displacement in a short time interval. Results of soft tissue simulation for patients who had a maxillofacial surgery are shown. Finally we truly validated the simulation results and compared our method with others. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.