Convex hull in medical simulations: a new hybrid approach

Abstract

Nowadays, virtual reality techniques have become widely used in different fields such as medical and architecture. Since a real object does not have a deterministic shape, it is impossible to define a geometric equation to model it. Thus, alternative approaches are the convex hull algorithms to form the convex envelopes of any object and to mimic realistic environment with exact collision detection between objects in the virtual world. In this paper, a hybrid approach to generate the convex hull is developed and presented. The new algorithm is validated by performing a comparison with three conventional algorithms namely the brute force, the gift wrapping and the QuickHull algorithms. The evaluation is achieved by generating the convex envelope of 3D wrist and knee bones using the four different approaches. The results show the improvement associated with the proposed approach.