Lung Modeling: Integrating Anatomy and Physiology

We present an integrated approach between anatomical and physiological modeling that is useful in medical training and visualization of internal body organ function. In particular, we model the breathing mechanism in the respiratory system because it involves physiological change, such as gas exchange, that depends on gross anatomical deformations (volume changes). We describe our initial model of the lungs for a simpliied process of normal, quiet breathing. Our system consists of two integrated levels of abstraction: (i) geometric and physics-based model-ing (shape extraction, motion, deformations, and graphi-cal rendering); (ii) mathematical relationships among parameters that express physical laws and physiological processes. We present experiments that demonstrate graphically the organ geometry, physics, and physiological dynamics .