Section: New Software and Platforms

TissueMeca

Keywords: Bioinformatics - Biology - Mechanics - Morphogenesis

Functional Description

A mechanical model of growing tissue has been implemented using the open source software SOFA and OpenAlea. Using OpenAlea, a generic tissue representation can be defined with attributes giving structural, geometrical and physical parameters of the simulation. Then, based on SOFA and its modular approach, it is possible to combine different element types (triangle and edge elements), forces (elastic forces and turgor) and positional constraints within the same model to find the static elastic equilibrium, given a current configuration. The use of an implicit integration scheme makes it possible to achieve close-to interactive simulation of growth. The module implements also growth equations for the different cell walls after each elastic equilibrium step. Algorithms to simulate division and refinement of each element of the modelled tissue are also available.

• Participants: Frédéric Boudon, Olivier Ali, Jean-Philippe Bernard, Benjamin Gilles, Christophe Godin.

• Contact: Frédéric Boudon

• https://gforge.inria.fr/projects/tissuemeca/