Multimedia Gallery
Biomechanical Modeling and Simulation
A comprehensive biomechanical model of the human upper body, which simulates 68 articular bones with 147 degrees of freedom; 354,000 tetrahedral finite elements with the appropriate constitutive behavior to simulate the soft tissues; 814 skeletal muscles, each modeled as a piecework uniaxial force actuator; and a dynamic controller that computes the muscle activations necessary to animate the elaborate musculoskeletal system.
The model--created by electrical engineer and computer scientist Demetri Terzopoulos and his colleagues at UCLA's computer graphics lab, uses a complex mixture of math, biomechanics, anatomy, physics and computing, and is the most-detailed biomechanical human model for computer animation yet.
To read a detailed report of this research, see "Comprehensive Biomechanical Modeling and Simulation of the Upper Body." [Research supported by National Science Foundation grant IIS 08-30183.] (Date of Image: 2008)
Credit: Sung-Hee Lee, Eftychios Sifakis and Demetri Terzopoulos, University of California, Los Angeles
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