A robust shape model for blood vessels analysis

The availability of digital twins for the cardiovascular system will enable insightful computational tools both for research and clinical practice. This, however, demands robust and well defined models and methods for the different steps involved in the process. We present a vessel coordinate system (VCS) that enables the unambiguous definition of locations in a vessel section, by adapting the idea of cylindrical coordinates to the vessel geometry. Using the VCS model, point correspondence can be defined among different samples of a cohort, allowing data transfer, quantitative comparison, shape coregistration or population analysis. Furthermore, the VCS model allows for the generation of specific meshes (e.g. cylindrical grids, OGrids) necessary for an accurate reconstruction of the geometries used in fluid simulations. We provide the technical details for coordinates computation and discuss the assumptions taken to guarantee that they are well defined. The VCS model is tested in a series of applications. We present a robust, low dimensional, patient specific vascular model and use it to study phenotype variability analysis of the thoracic aorta within a cohort of patients. Point correspondence is exploited to build an haemodynamics atlas of the aorta for the same cohort. The atlas originates from fluid simulations (Navier-Stokes with Finite Volume Method) conducted using OpenFOAMv10. We finally present a relevant discussion on the VCS model, which covers its impact in important areas such as shape modeling and computer fluids dynamics (CFD).