Personalization of cubic Hermite meshes for efficient biomechanical simulations

Cubic Hermite meshes provide an efficient representation of anatomy, and are useful for simulating soft tissue mechanics. However, their personalization can be a complex, time consuming and labour-intensive process. This paper presents a method based on image registration and using an existing template for deriving a patient-specific cubic Hermite mesh. Its key contribution is a solution to customise a Hermite continuous description of a shape with the use of a discrete warping field. Fitting accuracy is first tested and quantified against an analytical ground truth solution. To then demonstrate its clinical utility, a generic cubic Hermite heart ventricular model is personalized to the anatomy of a patient, and its mechanical stability is successfully tested. The method achieves an easy, fast and accurate personalization of cubic Hermite meshes, constituting a crucial step for the clinical adoption of physiological simulations.