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The 3D model of muscles and their tendons on bones - this is what Ondřej Havlíček's diploma thesis from FAV UWB was devoted to. A more sophisticated model of the so-called musculoskeletal system may, in the future, improve the possibilities of movement in physiotherapy or predict bone fractures. An expert jury shortlisted Ondřej's work from more than 1,400 entries from sixteen Czech and Slovak universities. Ondřej was also awarded the Magenta Award for Excellence in IT by T-Mobile.

The 3D model of the musculoskeletal system consists of the human body with only the bones and muscles attached to the bones at the point of the tendons. "If we know how the muscles are supposed to deform during movement, we can calculate the load on the bones and observe, for example, which part of the bone is taking the most load during a given movement, and therefore, where a fracture can occur. With the help of such a model, sports performance can be improved. The athlete can then be advised which muscles must be used more to distribute the forces effectively," explained Ondřej Havlíček.

Realistically, movement is caused by muscles pulling on tendons and tendons pulling on bones. "In the model, I want to move the bones, and my job is to make the muscles look like they are causing the movement. The part of the muscle caught on the moving bone moves with the bone. However, I want to preserve the volume and shape of the muscle as it deforms," Andrew added. In the original model, the muscles flexed very unnaturally, behaving more like pieces of wet cloth. "That's why I decided to try to solve the strange bends by simulating active contractions and relaxing the muscle shapes so that the muscles don't pass through each other. The contractions and relaxations of muscles are modeled so that the muscles cooperate in the movements according to their physiological nature, which is the case for the vast majority of movements," adds Ondřej.

No other 3D musculoskeletal model takes into account the physiologically correct functioning of bones and muscles. The model developed in this thesis exhibits realistic behavior and addresses unnatural bending and intersecting muscles in accordance with physiological theory. This makes the model more accurate compared to others, reflecting promising measurement results for the biomechanical community, for which the model is primarily directed.

The model developed by Ondřej Havlíček in his thesis entitled Muscle Interaction in the Context of Modelling Muscle Deformation Using Position-Based Dynamics Methods is developed within the Muscle Wrapping 2.0 project under the supervision of Josef Kohout from the Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, FAV ZČU: "I consider Ondřej's third place a great success. In addition, he also received the Magenta Award, which shows that the topic of Ondřej's work has considerable potential for further use," he said.
The competition was organized by Profinit and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).