Volume Conductor Modeling Applying the Boundary Element Method

For computation of forward and inverse solutions in bioelectromagnetism, digitized models of the associated volume conductor (human torso, human head) are required. Often a piecewise homogeneous model considering internal inhomogeneities (e.g. the lungs and the cavities of the heart; the skull and the cortex) is build up from MRI scans. In order to provide an explicit and compact representation of anatomical surfaces a semiautomatic meshing procedure has been developed. In a first step point clouds of the surfaces which have to be modeled are extracted manually from the MRI-scans. Then those surfaces are approximated by a double Fourier series or Legendre polynomials in a second step and the Boundary Element mesh is generated automatically.