Simulating the three-dimensional deformation of in vivo facial skin

Characterising the mechanical properties of human facial skin is a challenging but important endeavour with applications in biomedicine, surgery simulation, forensics, and animation. Many existing computer models of the face are not based on in vivo facial skin deformation data but rather on experiments using in vitro facial skin or other soft tissues. The facial skin of five volunteers was subjected to a rich set of deformations using a micro-robotic device. The force-displacement response was recorded for each deformation. All volunteers' facial skin exhibited a non-linear, anisotropic, and viscoelastic force-displacement response. We propose a finite element model that simulated the experimental deformations with error-of-fits ranging from 11% to 23%. The skin was represented by an Ogden strain energy function and a quasi-linear viscoelastic law. From non-linear optimisation procedures, we determined material parameters and in vivo pre-stresses for the central cheek area of five volunteers and five other facial points on one volunteer. Pre-stresses ranged from 15.9 kPa to 89.4 kPa.