The Virtual Family—development of surface-based anatomical models of two adults and two children for dosimetric simulations

TLDR

The four anatomically accurate whole-body models are collectively called the Virtual Family. The study aims to develop anatomically correct whole-body models of two adults and two children to enable optimized evaluation of electromagnetic exposure. The models were constructed from high-resolution MR images of healthy volunteers, employing a novel semi-automated segmentation tool and conformal computational techniques to generate 3D unstructured triangulated surface objects. Segmentation identified over 80 tissue types and produced high-precision 3D surface models, enhancing meshing flexibility and accuracy compared to voxel-based representations, and the resulting Virtual Family models are freely available to the scientific community.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to develop anatomically correct whole body human models of an adult male (34 years old), an adult female (26 years old) and two children (an 11-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy) for the optimized evaluation of electromagnetic exposure. These four models are referred to as the Virtual Family. They are based on high resolution magnetic resonance (MR) images of healthy volunteers. More than 80 different tissue types were distinguished during the segmentation. To improve the accuracy and the effectiveness of the segmentation, a novel semi-automated tool was used to analyze and segment the data. All tissues and organs were reconstructed as three-dimensional (3D) unstructured triangulated surface objects, yielding high precision images of individual features of the body. This greatly enhances the meshing flexibility and the accuracy with respect to thin tissue layers and small organs in comparison with the traditional voxel-based representation of anatomical models. Conformal computational techniques were also applied. The techniques and tools developed in this study can be used to more effectively develop future models and further improve the accuracy of the models for various applications. For research purposes, the four models are provided for free to the scientific community.