CAD-based biomedical modeling and visualization

The authors describe MFMS (mechanical finger modeling system), a computer model that was built to simulate a generic human finger. The MFMS permits the study of relationships among bone, muscle, and tendon, in addition to geometric and static properties of the finger. A specific application addressed is the determination of the existence of one-to-many mappings between tendon lengths and finger joint angles. For a given set of tendon lengths determined by the application of muscle forces from the extrinsic muscles of the finger, there exists more than one set of joint angles that the finger can assume. This research shows that for an anthromorphically motivated mechanical finger model there can be more than one finger position with the exact same tendon lengths. This can be carried over to the human finger model and is a key concept for the understanding of joint position perception by the finger. Implications for robot hand control are considered