Development of a Computational Toolkit for Biomechanical Analysis and Simulation: The Vertebrate Analyzer

This paper discusses the development of a computational modeling and analysis toolkit to construct, animate, and biomechanically analyze sophisticated models of vertebrates. Users will be able to create virtual musculoskeletal models of almost any vertebrate, extinct or extant, and run biomechanical analyses on one element or more of those models during simulated activities. By imposing selectable mechanical and physiologic constraints on each anatomical component comprising the virtual models (e.g., bone, tendon, muscle), resulting models will be variably limited in the behaviors that they can be programmed to emulate. The purpose is to both visualize and “experiment” with these biomechanically constrained models under known or estimated conditions and thereby test hypotheses relating to form, function, and/or behavior. The system is designed to be opensource and expandable, so that users can add their own functions and/or modify existing features.