Figure 3:

(a) Illustration of the computational setup used to simulate the optical tweezers experiment [10]. A stretching force is applied to $N_{+}$ and $N_{-}$ vertices, depicted by black square markers, representing physically the contact area of diameter $d_c$ between the silica microbeads and the RBC. (b, c) The axial $D_{\text{A}}$ and transverse $D_{\text{T}}$ diameters along with the in-plane $L_P$ and folding $L_{\text{F}}$ lengths characterize the deformation of the RBC, once the latter reaches mechanical equilibrium.