A Virtual Graphical and Haptic Environment for a Medical Training Simulator

An enhanced real-time virtual graphical and haptic environment used in a medical training simulator is presented in this paper. The medical simulator is a training simulator for urological minimally invasive operations, and consists of a five-dof haptic device, the virtual graphical and force environment, and the control system. All parts of the simulator are described in detail. A real-time graphical representation of the male urethra during the insertion of an endoscope is developed. Smooth urethra deformations are produced by a mesh of piecewise Bézier interpolations, while its inner wall is simulated by realistic tissue textures. Efficient realtime techniques are developed. A novel particle-based model computes in real-time the forces fed to the haptic device. A 13 fps refresh rate is achieved on a 2 GHz computer with the depth-of-field effect activated, while the rate is doubled to 26 fps with this feature disabled. It is expected that such a simulator will contribute to an ethical, efficient, and modern surgeon training.