Participants

• Faculty: Dr. Elisa Barney Smith, Dr. Michelle Sabick

• Students: Joetta Anderson

Description

In an attempt to see why female athletes sustain anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries at rates from three to seven times higher than male athletes in the same sports, a model of the skeletal and muscular systems in a human female is being developed. To populate this model, the non-linear strength and location of muscles must be determined. It is desired to know the mass and placement of the muscles over their extent. The visible slices from the female human are being analyzed to determine the center of mass and the cross-sectional area of each slice. To aid in this endeavor, we are helping to automate the segmentation process by implementing the intelligent scissors algorithm (developed by Barrett at BYU) and combining this with some interpolation to automate the acquisition of data from intermediate slices.