The Visualization and Measurement of Left Ventricular Deformation

Wuensche, B.

While medical progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases it remains the biggest killer in the western world. Cardiovascular diseases cause considerable morbidity and the prognosis after heart failure is poor. An improved understanding of cardiac mechanics might advance the diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases. We have developed a toolkit designed for visualizing biomedical models. This paper explains techniques for visualizing and evaluating biomedical finite element models and demonstrates their application to biomedical data sets by using as an example two models of a health and a diseased human left ventricle. The contributions of this paper are threefold: First we apply techniques traditionally used in solid mechanics and computational fluid dynamics to biomedical data. We also suggest some minor improvements and modifications. Secondly we obtain new insight into the mechanics of the healthy and diseased left ventricle and we facilitate the understanding of the complex deformation of the heart muscle by novel visualizations. Finally we also introduce in this process a toolkit designed for visualizing biomedical data sets.

Cite as: Wuensche, B. (2003). The Visualization and Measurement of Left Ventricular Deformation. In Proc. First Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Conference (APBC2003), Adelaide, Australia. CRPIT, 19. Chen, Y.-P. P., Ed. ACS. 119-128.

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