PROGRAM FOR GENERATION OF 3-DIMENSIONAL FINITE-ELEMENT MESH FROM MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING SCANS OF HUMAN LIMBS

A PC-AT based program for conversion of magnetic resonance imaging (MR I) scans into coordinate input for finite element mesh generation is p resented. The program is written in Borland C + +3.1 and is compatible with every general-use personal computer, permitting the use of MS-DO S3.0 or higher with a Microsoft mouse. The program is menu driven and does not demand specialised knowledge from the user. The system and me mory requirements are minimal -640 kB RAM - and it runs as a stand-alo ne program. A second program allows the construction of a three-dimens ional representation of the limb sub-structure and generation of the F E mesh from the converted cross-sectional scans. The capabilities of t he program are demonstrated using cross-sectional scans of the upper a rm; the fat, muscle and bone contours were obtained to a very high lev el of precision (0.4,nm). (C) 1997 IPEM Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.