Interactive modeling and simulation of peripheral nerve cords in virtual environments

An intersubject variable regional anesthesia simulator with a virtual patient architecture

“…Other MRI protocols sometimes reveal a cross-section of a nerve cord in a slice; however, these occur only infrequently, and similar gray values of other tissue render segmentation attempts to impossible tasks. Therefore, we have created a modeling tool to construct virtual nerves or similar structures, e.g., lymph and blood vessels, with spline control points in a three-dimensional environment [35]. The application supports conventional desktop input devices (i.e., mouse and keyboard) but also a 6-DOF input device (e.g., we use a PHANTOM Omni Device, SensAble Technology, USA) for intuitive spatial positioning.…”