Recurring Meeting of Cleveland Clinic Core Team

Date: June 18, 2014

Time: 10:30 AM EST

Means: In person meeting

Attendees:

1. Ahmet Erdemir
2. Jason Halloran
3. Craig Bennetts
4. Snehal Chokhandre
5. Katie Stemmer

Agenda:

1. Discuss immediate action items from the last meeting.
2. Discuss tissue testing progress.
3. Discuss modeling specifications progress.
4. Decide immediate action items for the next meeting.
5. Other.

Immediate Action Items:

• Ahmet
  • Talk to Biomomentum Inc. about downsampling approach for the video data.
  • Update imaging parameters and release anatomical imaging specifications.
  • Update experimentation workflow figure.
  • Review tissue testing specifications.
  • Review tissue sampling section of specimen preparation specifications.
• Craig
  • Review specimen preparation specifications.
• Robb
  • Find camera positioning system for thickness measurements.
  • Provide processing tools to move between "right knee abstraction" and physical representation" of knee data collected during joint testing.
• Tara
  • Review tissue testing specifications.
• Jason
  • Revisit pressure calibration specifications.
• Snehal
  • Provide a test file to accommodate scripts for reading tissue testing system data.
  • Write a Python script to downsample number of video images collected during tissue testing.
  • Start planning and executing tissue testing procedures to finalize tissue testing specifications.

Notes:

1. Discuss immediate action items from the last meeting.
   • Ahmet will continue with his action items this week.
   • Katie has spent time working on parametric representation of segmented geometries. She will update wiki pages of her project site. These can be used to populate related Open Knee(s) specifications.
   • Snehal, with Craig's help, wrote a script to read and plot tissue testing files. A test file should also be uploaded to test the script if/when it is updated.
   • Snehal is working on the video down-sampling script. Craig noted that the script should be generic enough for the user to specify key parameters such as resampling frequency, duration, number of frames, etc.
   • The eye wash station was installed in the new tissue testing room. Once the area is cleaned up, the equipment can be moved. Snehal will need help moving the equipment.
2. Discuss tissue testing progress.
   • The Mach-1 software for tissue testing was updated using the file provided by Biomomentum, Inc. Snehal conducted an LCL tension test for a duration of 20 minutes. It appears that the artifacts in displacement data collection are not present. The issue seems to be resolved but it will be checked in upcoming tests.
   • Related to tissue testing, Ahmet noted that the protocols need to be worked out in detail in the upcoming two and a half weeks before World Congress of Biomechanics 2014. One bottle neck for completing this task is related to troubleshooting of the tissue grips, especially for ligament tension testing. Snehal noted that there has been slippage at the clamp interface in the past. This needs to be addressed, potentially by manufacturing new clamps. Most of the tissue samples for additional trial testing have been acquired, the fine details of testing protocols need to be worked out. Snehal will reach out to the group members for help with these items. Testing will start immediately; an update will be provided in the upcoming week.
   • Snehal created a new page to document the approach for tissue thickness measurement. Ahmet will help Snehal update this section and the other tissue testing specifications. Ahmet will also review the specifications related to tissue sample preparations.
3. Discuss modeling specifications progress.
   • Craig created a relational modeling graph. This was uploaded to the relevant specification page. The relationships between model components were discussed and it was agreed that the graph is nearly complete. Katie will create a version of this graph specifically for her project, which will highlight the relational components that she needs for her cruciate ligament modeling study.

   • Katie's specific work on cruciate ligaments serves as a case study to fine tune modeling and simulation specifications of Open Knee(s). Katie will explore how her specific project fits into the modeling and simulation workflow of Open Knee(s). We discussed the relationship between her project and the specifications of the Open Knee(s). Katie gave an update of her project directly from the her project's wiki site. Katie learned to identify the cruciate ligaments and can now orient herself with regards to common anatomical descriptions (anterior, medial, superior). Katie, with Craig's help and training, also gave an update on her experience using Slicer 3D for segmentation. She noted the software seems to randomly create backup files of the segmented volumes; indicating that some troubleshooting for using this software in modeling workflow may be needed. Both segmented volumes and surfaces (stl) can be saved from Slicer. Smoothing can also be performed on the segmented volumes. Regarding smoothing of the stl files, Meshlab was also explored and found to be useful. The team need to come up with a way to quantitatively compare the end product (if it's a nurbs surface) with the original segmentation. Ahmet noted that Salome can calculate the distance between any point and a surface. This may be a possibility to measure the final parametric surface with the unsmoothed stl. The path to create parametric surfaces is also being explored. Rhino (Robert McNeel & Associates) appears to work well for this. Katie downloaded a trial version. Ahmet would also like pyformex to be explored. For meshing, Ahmet noted that Truegrid can be used with an stl file albeit with increased computational cost (and inconvenience). Unstructured parametric patches of segmented volumes or a structured parametric (lofted) representations can be defined. Ultimately, this path will be resolved to efficiently create hexahedral meshes of the desired structure(s).

4. Decide immediate action items for the next meeting.
   • Action items were discussed and agreed on; see Immediate Action Items above.
5. Other.
   • None noted.