Three Dimensional Lower Extremity Musculoskeletal Geometry of the Visible Human Female and Male

Abstract

Models and simulations of human function impact medicine and medical technology. Particularly, musculoskeletal modeling provides an avenue for insight into the human body, which might not be otherwise possible. However, reaching the ultimate goal of functional multi-scale human models has been slowed by the lack of freely available datasets of anatomical models and geometries. Moreover, female-specific geometries have been neglected with a widespread emphasis on male geometry. To help realize this goal, we have developed and shared complete three-dimensional musculoskeletal geometries extracted from the National Libraries of Medicine Visible Human Female and Male cryosections. Muscle, bone, cartilage, ligament, and fat from the pelvis to the ankle were digitized and exported. These geometries provide a foundation for continued work in human musculoskeletal simulation with high-fidelity deformable tissues that enable a better understanding of normal function and the evaluation of pathologies and treatments. This work is novel as it includes both the male and female Visible Human specimens, outputs at multiple levels of post-processing for maximum data reuse, and is publicly available.

Fig. 1

Anterior, lateral, and posterior views of the Female (left) and Male (right) 3D musculoskeletal geometry consisting of 76 muscles, 28 bones, 16 joint cartilage segments, and 8 ligaments.

Fig. 2

Flowchart showing the primary steps in the model generation process and the publicly shared outputs.