MuscleBuilder: a modeling tool for human anatomy

A traditional multi-layered approach is adopted to human body modeling and deformation. The model is split into three general anatomical structures: the skeleton, musculature and skin. It is shown that each of these layers is modeled and deformed by using fast, procedural, ad-hoc methods that can painlessly be reimplemented. The modeling approach is generic enough to handle muscles of varying shape, size and characteristics and does not break in extreme skeleton poses. It is also described that the integrated MuscleBuilder system whose main features are: i) easy and quick creation of muscle deformation models; ii) automatic deformation of an overlying skin. It is shown that visually realistic results can be obtained at interactive frame rates with very little input from the designer