# Interactive Modelling of Volumetric Musculoskeletal Anatomy

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.05161 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05161/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 9 Jun 2021.

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Breaking Bad: A Dataset for Geometric Fracture and Reassembly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11463/) (2022)
- [Generative GaitNet](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12044/) (2022)
- [OstrichRL: A Musculoskeletal Ostrich Simulation to Study Bio-mechanical Locomotion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.06061/) (2021)
- [Human 3D Avatar Modeling with Implicit Neural Representation: A Brief Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03576/) (2023)
- [Temporal Residual Jacobians For Rig-free Motion Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.14958/) (2024)
- [NIMBLE: A Non-rigid Hand Model with Bones and Muscles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.04533/) (2022)
- [SMF: Template-free and Rig-free Animation Transfer using Kinetic Codes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.04831/) (2025)
- [Mutual Adaptive Reasoning for Monocular 3D Multi-Person Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.07900/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present a new approach for modelling musculoskeletal anatomy. Unlike previous methods, we do not model individual muscle shapes as geometric primitives (polygonal meshes, NURBS etc.). Instead, we adopt a volumetric segmentation approach where every point in our volume is assigned to a muscle, fat, or bone tissue. We provide an interactive modelling tool where the user controls the segmentation via muscle curves and we visualize the muscle shapes using volumetric rendering. Muscle curves enable intuitive yet powerful control over the muscle shapes. This representation allows us to automatically handle intersections between different tissues (musclemuscle, muscle-bone, and muscle-skin) during the modelling and automates computation of muscle fiber fields. We further introduce a novel algorithm for converting the volumetric muscle representation into tetrahedral or surface geometry for use in downstream tasks. Additionally, we introduce an interactive skeleton authoring tool that allows the users to create skeletal anatomy starting from only a skin mesh using a library of bone parts.