VirtuCath - Using MuJoCo for Medical Catheter Simulation

[MishaTikh]

Hi everyone,

For the past six months, I've been working solo on a project called VirtuCath (virtucath.com), and I wanted to share it with the community here. It’s a bit of a different application for MuJoCo: a desktop GUI tool for simulating the mechanics of deflectable medical micro-catheters.

Why MuJoCo?

I chose MuJoCo because of its incredible performance and its robust actuator/tendon system, which turned out to be perfect for modeling catheter pullwires. The core of my model is a chain of rigid bodies (capsules) connected by joints with configurable stiffness and damping. The pullwires are modeled as MuJoCo tendon elements, which allows for simulating complex, multi-wire deflections in near-real time—something that would be much slower in a traditional FEA package.

What it Does

The goal was to build a tool for biomedical engineers (like myself) who aren't necessarily simulation experts. Users can define a catheter's properties (sections, stiffness, pullwire layout) in a simple GUI, and VirtuCath constructs the MuJoCo XML model on the fly. You can then interact with it, actuate the pullwires, and get immediate useful data on things like tip angle, curvature, and forces.

Status & Feedback Request

The project is now at a stable beta stage for Windows. I would be honored to get some feedback from this community, whether it's on my approach to modeling this in MuJoCo, the usability of the tool, or potential features. If you have a background in medical devices, biomechanics, or just find the application interesting, I’d love for you to try it out.

If you are interested, you can access the beta download link here: https://virtucath.com/beta-download

Thanks to the whole MuJoCo team and community for building and maintaining such a fantastic engine that makes projects like this possible for a solo developer.

Best,
Mikhail Tikh

[MishaTikh]

[MishaTikh]

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