Versatile Design of Changing Mesh Topologies for Surgery Simulation

Abstract

In the context of surgery simulation, this paper presents a generic and efficient solution to handle topological changes on deformable meshes under real-time constraints implemented in the SOFA [4] platform. The proposed design is based on a simulation tree gathering software components acting on a mesh. The mesh topology is described by a topological component which also provides algorithms for performing topological changes (cutting, refinement). An important aspect of the design is that mesh related data is not centralized in the mesh data structure but stored in each dedicated component. Furthermore, topological changes are handled in a transparent way for the user through a mechanism of propagation of topological events from the topological components toward other components. Finally, the previous concepts have been extended to provide multiple topologies for the same degrees of freedom. Examples of cataract surgery simulation based on this versatile design are shown.