Investigation of anatomical structures of canine hind limb and kinematical analysis by computer modeling

The goal of this study is to make a three dimensional model of a large-breed canines hind limb?s skeleton on computer, to analyze the flexion, extension, gait and trotting movements on models and to expose the kinematics parameters of joints and bones of the hind limb skeleton during these motions.In this study, coxae, femur and tibia bones which belongs to a massive race dog were used and these bones were digitized with the three dimensional laser scanner. On the next steps, three dimensional models and assemblies of the bones were made by using the SolidWorks software.Joint angles of hind limb was measured at the phases of motion that will be analyzed and transferred to the model which was designed at the computer. Motions been simulated in Cosmos software.At the end of the simulation, the displacement, velocity and acceleration of femur, tibia, coxae, knee joint, and ankle joints results were obtained. During the flexion and the extension of the hind limb, the greatest displacement, velocity and acceleration was seen on tibia and on each positions the greatest acceleration was seen at the beginning and the end of the motion. Therefore it can be said that the biggest load and stress during the motion occur at the beginning and at the end of the motion.It can be thought that this study is a valuable source for the prosthesis application and definition of physiological diseases for examining human and animal movements.In this study, the canines? joint movements are defined with the simulation method with the three dimensional hind limb model on computer. These kind of simulations will be useful for both examining canine?s hind limb movement mechanism?s normal and pathological cases on computer without using living animal and can be used for designing various grafts for hip and knee joints.