Friday, December 16, 2022
Biomechanical researcher Dr. Ajay Seth (assistant professor, TU Delft) and his lead software developer, Adam Kewley, have received a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) Essential Open Source Software for Science (EOSS) grant of USD 350,000 for the development of the open-source biomechanical modeling software 'OpenSim Creator'.
OpenSim Creator will enable scientists to create new neuromuscular and musculoskeletal models within hours. This gives them better and faster answers to biomedical questions about the mobility of people and animals.
OpenSim Creator evolved from Dr. Seth's previous work on OpenSim. In this software toolkit, movements of musculoskeletal models can be simulated. Engineers and researchers use this to calculate the mechanics of bones and muscles during human movement. For example, it is possible to see what the effect is if a muscle group is not controlled properly, or how age changes the movement pattern. The scientific program Medical Delta: Improving Mobility with Technology also uses these models, including the research group of Medical Delta professor Prof. Dr. Ir. Jaap Harlaar, in which Seth takes part as well.
Morphing
OpenSim Creator builds on OpenSim, but allows users to work faster and more accurately. “OpenSim Creator will provide musculoskeletal morphing tools which allow the reshaping of models to match patients’ biomedical images, so doctors and researchers can create their own new models – something which is normally really difficult,” says Seth.
This is useful for clinicians and researchers wanting to build patient-specific models of patients that don’t fit the generic model, such as amputees or children, or for animals. “If someone has a specific deformity, and you want to model how they move, you need to take an existing model and then apply torsion to the bones to represent that deformity. And that’s actually what we do in OpenSim Creator - we take an existing model and morph it based on an images of what that model should become – and we hope to be able to transform personalized models in just a few hours.”
Read the more detailed article from TU Delft here
Collage of models
