OpenSim is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 software system for biomechanical

Biomechanics

Biomechanics is the application of mechanical principles to biological systems, such as humans, animals, plants, organs, and cells. Perhaps one of the best definitions was provided by Herbert Hatze in 1974: "Biomechanics is the study of the structure and function of biological systems by means of...

 modeling, simulation

Simulation

Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....

 and analysis. Its purpose is to provide free and widely accessible tools for conducting biomechanics research and motor control science. OpenSim enables a wide range of studies, including analysis of walking dynamics, studies of sports performance, simulations of surgical procedures, analysis of joint loads, design of medical devices, and animation of human and animal movement. The software performs inverse dynamics

Analytical dynamics

In classical mechanics, analytical dynamics, or more briefly dynamics, is concerned about the relationship between motion of bodies and its causes, namely the forces acting on the bodies and the properties of the bodies...

 analysis and forward dynamics simulations. OpenSim is used in hundreds of biomechanics laboratories around the world to study movement and has a community of software developers contributing new features.

OpenSim is one of the flagship applications from Simbios, a NIH Center for Biomedical Computation at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. Founded in 2004, Simbios is charged with a mandate to provide leading software and computational tools for physics-based modeling and simulation of biological structures. OpenSim was designed to propel biomechanics research by providing a common framework for investigation and a vehicle for exchanging complex musculoskeletal models.

History

OpenSim 1.0 was released on August 20, 2007 and provided capabilities for viewing musculoskeletal models, importing models developed in SIMM (Musculographics Inc.), editing muscle paths, and generating muscle actuated simulations that track experimental data.

OpenSim 1.1 was released on December 11, 2007, which added new features such as user-specified camera positions for recording movies of simulations, and a perturbation

Perturbation theory

Perturbation theory comprises mathematical methods that are used to find an approximate solution to a problem which cannot be solved exactly, by starting from the exact solution of a related problem...

(sensitivity) analysis for inquiry into the function of individual muscles.

OpenSim 2.2.1 was released as of April 11, 2011. This newest and most recent update enhanced the user interface and allowed the user to set bounds on activations of muscles and actuators relating to static optimization not dynamic optimization.

External links

• http://simtk.org/home/opensim/
• http://nmbl.stanford.edu/
• http://simbios.stanford.edu/
• http://simtk.org/