svMorph: Interactive geometry-editing tools for virtual patient-specific vascular anatomies

Abstract: We propose svMorph, a framework for interactive virtual sculpting of patient-specific vascular anatomic models. Our framework includes three tools for the creation of tortuosity, aneurysms, and stenoses in tubular vascular geometries. These shape edits are performed via geometric operations on the surface mesh and vessel centerline curves of the input model. The tortuosity tool also uses the physics-based Oriented Particles method, coupled with linear blend skinning, to achieve smooth, elastic-like deformations. Our tools can be applied separately or in combination to produce simulation-suitable morphed models. They are also compatible with popular vascular modeling software, such as SimVascular. To illustrate our tools, we morph several image-based, patient-specific models to create a range of shape changes and simulate the resulting hemodynamics via three-dimensional, computational fluid dynamics. We also demonstrate the ability to quickly estimate the hemodynamic effects of the shape changes via automated generation of associated zero-dimensional lumped-parameter models.