Sim4Life & S4L
itis4health

            

Sim4Life computer-aided design modeling of a branching peripheral nerve fiber with fascicles, axons, and electrodes.

 

Ultra-obese Virtual Population models in Sim4Life.

 

Parametric study of wireless power transfer exposure in Sim4Life.

 

Millimeter wave compliance assessment in Sim4Life.

Sim4Life & S4L

The computational platforms Sim4Life (desktop version) and S4L (web version), co-developed by IT’IS and ZMT Zurich MedTech AG, are long-term projects with the goal to continually push the boundaries of biomedical simulations in complex anatomies.

Background

Computational Life Sciences is one of the main pillars of research activities at IT'IS. First, we focused on the development of a powerful electromagnetic finite-difference-time-domain solver for dosimetric research, which became the core of the full-wave 3D EM simulation software SEMCAD X Matterhorn. Together with the University of Calgary, IT’IS was the first to use clusters of graphics processing units to overcome the limits of problem complexity, an approach that is now state-of-the-art.

Over the last 15 years, we have acquired more and more projects to address scientific questions that require modeling of various physical interactions and processes in living tissue and human physiology. In the work on these projects, we have greatly advanced the capabilities of the physical and physiological solvers used to handle the most detailed computational animal (ViZoo) and human Virtual Population models (15 different body types with 120 vital anatomical features and over 300 precisely identified tissues and organs). Together with ZMT, we regularly integrate new tools into our Sim4Life and S4L platforms and make them sustainably available to our partners and the industry.

Sim4Life Desktop Version vs. S4L Web Version

The desktop version Sim4Life includes the latest tools jointly developed with ZMT. S4L, currently available as S4Llite, is the web version of Sim4Life, which relies on the o2S2PARC cloud-based technology. The development of S4L represents another technological breakthrough, as it is the first natively implemented advanced simulation tool on the web.

The specifications of the latest Sim4Life and S4L versions can be reviewed on the ZMT website.

When do we use Sim4Life & S4L?

Sim4Life is the primary simulation tool we use in our research, as it offers the most advanced features and performance. Recently, we have been making more and more use of S4L’s many collaborative features that become available thanks to o2S2PARC, such as facile sharing of simulation projects online that has allowed effective extension and complementation of the tools. As such, prototyping new ideas via integration of new and various existing tools has become a matter of hours instead of months.