Mesh optimization of vessel surface model for computer-aided simulation of percutaneous coronary intervention

Percutaneous coronary intervention is the gold standard to coronary diseases in the past decades due to much less trauma and quick recovery. However, due to the traits of minimal invasiveness, clinicians have to defeat the difficulties in eye-hand coordination during the procedure, which also makes it a non-trivial task in the catheterization lab. The computer-aided surgical simulation is designed to provide a reliable tool for the early stage of the training of the procedure. In this simulation system, the surface model of the vessels contribute the major part in the virtual anatomic environment. On the other hand, heavy interactions between the virtual surgical tools and the model surface occur during the training. In order to achieve acceptable performances, the patient-specific vessel surface model needs further process to adapt to this situation. We proposed in this paper an approach to optimize the meshes that consist the surface model with its application in consideration. The connectivity of the surface model is firstly checked. Next a smooth processing is applied without modifying the geometry of the largest-connected surface. Then the quantities of the polygons consisting the model surface are eliminated both dramatically and appropriately. The resultant surface model is applied in the validation test interacting with the virtual guidewire.