A New Toolbox for Generating Realistic Biological Cell Geometries for Electromagnetic Microdosimetry

Researchers in bioelectromagnetics often require realistic tissue, cellular and subcellular geometry models for their simulations. However, biological shapes are often extremely irregular, while conventional geometrical modeling tools in the market cannot meet the demand for fast and efficient construction of irregular geometries. We have designed a free, user-friendly tool in MATLAB that combines several known or new algorithms for easy production of three-dimensional complex cell shapes based on minimum data. We have considered four different methods of creating objects: Generalized Rotation, Super-Formula, 3D reconstruction of 2D parallel cross-sections and branching models. Besides, many transformations such as translation and rotation, Boolean operations for 3D objects including union and intersection, random copy, etc. are also included in the toolbox. By utilizing different methods, our toolbox generates a larger variety of realistic biological geometries, especially tailored for irregular and branching cellular and sub-cellular shapes. We present a group of biological shape examples in this paper. The toolbox can export the geometries to common standard stl or voxel formats to be used for simulations in other software. We have developed an open, user-friendly toolbox, with specialization in cellular and sub-cellular irregular models. This toolbox can provide the essential realistic cellular models for scientific simulations in biomedical engineering, biotechnology, bioelectromagnetics, cell biomechanics, and serve as an educational visualization tool in teaching cell biology. Examples of microdosimetric simulations for electromagnetic exposure to RF frequencies are given and discussed.