Simulating Spinal Surgery


Ryan Schmidt and colleagues at the University of Calgary have recently used FarField Technology's FastRBF™ Command Line Toolbox to model human spinal vertebrae as part of a spinal surgery simulation. Visit http://www.unknownroad.com/projects/spinaltap/index.html for further information.

  • RBFs are used to reconstruct vertebrae from CT data
  • Spline smoothing is used to smooth vertebrae models
  • Solid modeling techniques are used to simulate drilling to place screws which are used to fuse damaged vertebrae
Intersection of virtual drill with Vertebrae RBF (courtesy of Ryan Schmidt)