Determination of instantaneous centres of rotation: Parallel application in spine kinematics

In the field of spine biomechanics it is desirable to calculate kinematic parameters such as instantaneous centres of rotation (ICR) and intervertebral angles, for each vertebral joint. Generally, this calculation is done sequentially, which means vertebra by vertebra. This paper describes a method which calculates these kinematic parameters using parallel computing. With this methodology it is possible to analyse several vertebrae at the same time. This is a preliminary study which deals with simple motions of rigid cubes.