Patent ID: 7277833

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of modeling an endoscope comprising the steps of: representing the endoscope as a chain of rigid links, interconnected by discrete joints; determining filter functions including a plurality of internal constraints of the endoscope and a plurality of external constraints of the endoscope, wherein the filter functions comprise at least one of a geometry filter, a joint filter, a bounding tube filter, a gravity filter, and a stopping criteria filter; determining a spatial tree corresponding to the endoscope limited by the plurality of internal constraints and the plurality of external constraints of the endoscope, wherein the plurality of internal constraints and the plurality of external constraints are applied to each of the rigid links individually; determining a model of the active bending behavior of the tip of the endoscope, comprising determining the center of a circle of radius r that defines a movement of the tip of the endoscope; and storing the spatial tree and the model of the active bending behavior on a computer readable media.