Animation multirésolution d'objets déformables en temps-réel, Application à la simulation chirurgicale

Animating virtual scenes in Computer Graphics is a mastered technique, widely used for special effects and video games. It is although usually restricted to the animation of the motion of a rigid object. This thesis will try to automatically generate the deformations of a soft object, furthermore in real-time. The goal application is the creation of a surgical simulator for minimally invasive operations aimed at surgeons training. Current methods do not allow at the same time a satisfactory visual realism and a real-time animation. In order to achieve this goal, we have used the linear elasticity laws which guarantee the realism of the simulation and ensure that the behavior of the object will be the same, whatever the discretization that we use. We propose a multiresolution simulation method which automatically adapts according to the simulation and in each region of the object the precision of the computations to obtain a trade-off between a coarse and fast simulation and on the contrary a more precise animation using more sample points. The part of the organ which is close to the tool manipulated by the user will hence be animated with a good precision, whereas distant regions, visually less important will use a coarser simulation. This research resulted in the creation of a surgical simulator prototype with a real-time animation thanks to the use of multiresolution. The realism is improved by the use of a force feedback device which simulates the organ's resistance to deformation, computed from the internal physical model.

@PhdThesis\{Deb00,
  author       = "Debunne, Gilles",
  title        = "Animation multir\'esolution d'objets d\'eformables en temps-r\'eel, Application \`a la simulation chirurgicale",
  school       = "Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble",
  month        = "Dec",
  year         = "2000",
  keywords     = "animation, multiresolution, de",
  url          = "http://artis.inrialpes.fr/Publications/2000/Deb00"
}