Cardiac Modelling for Pathophysiology Research and Clinical Applications. The Need for an Automated Pipeline

Abstract

A flexible pipeline for construction of computer models for electrophysiology simulation is presented. It allows the construction of 3D FEM models from clinical images with little user interaction. The processing pipeline allows to segment a patient-specific heart geometry from a scan data set, mesh it, and include the necessary functional structures to build a computational model. This structures include approximated fiber orientation and generic fast conduction system. The pipeline is expected to be used to construct models for study heart electrophysiology with special emphasis in cardiac resynchronization therapy in the context of the euHeart project. This framework will allow processing cases to perform clinical in a systematic and fast way.