François Chung, Ph.D.

INRIA project @Geneva, Switzerland (2009). We are interested in the 3D reconstruction of the lower limb anatomical structures. The proposed method starts with a Magnetic Resonance (MR) image acquisition during which the lower limb of a subject is scanned. 3D models are generated after a manual segmentation of the anatomical structures. However, the surface of the models appears not to be smooth and the models are not attached whereas they should be anatomically.

Various consecutive steps are needed to constrain the models to be correct at the anatomical level. The aim of our method is to reuse these models with automatic segmentation methods.

This work is a collaboration between:

• INRIA Sophia-Antipolis - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (FR);
• UNIGE - Université de Genève (CH).

Our modeling approach allowed us to generate most of the anatomical structures of the lower limb, such as bones, muscles and tendons. We were able to create a total of 109 models including the bones, muscles, tendons and skin. Regarding the bones, we modeled 6 in total. More specifically, the hip, femur, patella, tibia, fibula and foot bone. Finally, we modeled 34 muscles in total. For each muscle, we modeled a pair of tendons (proximal and distal) whose role is to attach muscles to bones. The generated models were evaluated and validated by a medical expert.

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