Realistic models of children heads from 3D MRI segmentation and tetrahedral mesh construction
Jasmine Burguet, Najib Gadi, Isabelle Bloch · 2004
In order to analyze the sensitivity of children to RF fields and mobile phones in particular, the SAR (Spe-cific Absorption Ratio) defined as the power absorbed by a unit of mass of tissues (W/kg) should be com-puted based on a numerical model of the head. We propose to build realistic models from 3D-MRI of chil-dren heads. The method is composed of two steps. The first one consists in segmenting the main tissues in these images (skin, fat, muscles, cortical and mar-row bones, cerebrospinal fluid, grey and white matter, blood, etc.). The segmentation is based on mathemat-ical morphology methods which are well adapted to this aim and provide a robust and automatic method requiring minimum user intervention. Using simplified segmented images, the second step concerns the tetra-hedral mesh generation. Our method uses almost reg-ular meshes and topological tools to preserve the topo-logical arrangement of the head tissues. A method to guarantee a good geometrical quality is also provided.