1. An Overview of SOFA (Simulation Open Framework Architecture)
Shamyl Bin Mansoor and Mohsin Nasir
SMART Lab, SEECS, NUST

2. Outline What is SOFA Modeling in SOFA Multimodal Representation
Simulation in SOFA
Features of SOFA
Using SOFA C U I

3. What is SOFA ? An open source framework for surgical simulators
Developed by 3 INRIA (France) Teams helped by CIMIT Sim Group (US), ETH Zurich and CSIRO (Australia)
Currently under development with SOFA Version beta 4 released in 2009
Currently most research in medical simulation is being done using SOFA Framework C U I

4. What is SOFA ? Simulation Open Framework Architecture (SOFA) is
An open source C++ library for physical simulation primarily targeted to medical simulation
It can be used as an external library or in another program or using one of the associated GUI applications
Highly flexible
Allows the use of multiple interacting geometrical models of the same object C U I

5. Features of SOFA Force fields Mappings Constraints Articulated Bodies
Fluids
GUI
Haptics C U I

6. Modeling in SOFA Mechanical Model Collision Model Visual Model
Each model can be designed independently
During run-time, consistency is maintained using mappings C U I

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12. SOFA Liver Example

13. Simulation in SOFA
SOFA scenes are modeled using hierarchical scene graphs
This allows splitting of physical objects into collections of independent components
Components can be replaced by other components e.g Spring forces replaced by FEM forces
Simulation algorithms like time integration or collision detection and modeling are modeled as scene graph components
Same flexibility for algorithms as for models C U I

14. Simulations in SOFA
Scene graph traversals for calculation of forces at each component
These forces are accumulated and then solved using Ordinary Differential Equation Solvers (ODEs).
There are several ODE solvers available in SOFA C U I

15. The whole process Model Create Simulation Scene
Animate (Run Simulation)

16. Using SOFA for modeling
SOFA can be downloaded from
Currently there are 3 ways of modeling simulation scenes
Using SOFA Modeler
Using XML
Using C++
Simulations can be run using the runSOFA application or using C++ C U I

17. Using SOFA
Run Simulation Scene
Drag & Drop
SOFA Components C U I

18. Animate Scene C U I

19. Lets move on to the Hands On Exercises
Thank You
Lets move on to the Hands On Exercises