Dissection, digitization, and three-dimensional modelling: a high-fidelity anatomical visualization and imaging technology

Technological advances have enabled the development of a novel technique of dissection, digitization and three-dimensional modelling of skeletal muscle and other tissues including neurovascular structures as in situ over the last 25 years. Meticulous serial dissection followed by digitization is used to collect Cartesian coordinate data of the contractile and connective tissue elements throughout the entire muscle volume. The Cartesian coordinate can then be used to construct high-fidelity three-dimensional models that capture the spatial arrangement of the contractile and connective tissue elements as in situ enabling detailed studies of the arrangement of the fiber bundles and their attachment sites to aponeuroses, tendon, and bone. In the laboratory, we have concurrently developed a computational methodology to quantify architectural parameters, including fiber bundle length, pennation angle, volume, physiological cross-sectional area in three-dimensional space. In this paper, a flexor digitorum superficialis specimen will be used to demonstrate the high-fidelity outcomes of dissection, digitization, and three-dimensional modelling. This three-step methodology provides a unique opportunity to study muscle architecture in three dimensions, as in situ. Knowledge translation from the anatomy laboratory to the clinical setting has been highly successful.