In this paper, we propose a modeling of the intestines by implicit surfaces for abdominal surgery simulation. The difficulty of such a simulation comes from the animation of the intestines. As a matter of fact, the intestines are a very long tube that is not isotropically elastic, and that bends over itself at various spots, creating multiple self-contacts. We use a multiple component model for the intestines: The first component is a mechanical model of their axis; the second component is a specific sphere-based model to manage collisions and self-collisions; and the third component is a skinning model to define their volume. This paper focuses on the better representation for skinning the intestines. We compare two implicit models: Surfaces defined by point-skeletons and convolution surfaces. A direct application of this simulation is the training of a typical surgical gesture to move apart the intestines in order to reach certain areas of the abdomen. Keywords: Surgical simulation, virtual reality, implicit surfaces, real-time computation, application to medical domain.

@inproceedings{FAMCLFC02,
author = {Laure France and Alexis Angelidis and Philippe Meseure and Marie-Paule Cani and Julien Lenoir and Fran\c{c}ois Faure and Christophe Chaillou},
title = {Implicit Representations of the Human Intestines for Surgery Simulation},
booktitle = {Modelling and Simulation for Computer-aided Medicine and Surgery, MS4CMS 2002, November, 2002},
series = {ESAIM Proceedings},
editor = {Marc Thiriet},
organization = {INRIA},
address = {Rocquencourt, France},
publisher = {EDP Sciences},
volume = 12,
pages = {42--47},
year = 2002
}