On the Display of Haptic Recordings for Cutting Biological Tissues

Current simulations of surgical procedures do not provide haptic feedback of cutting forces felt while using surgical scissors. We have designed and tested “haptic scissors,” an interface that can display forces to a user grasping Metzenbaum scissor handles. By filtering and scaling cutting data obtained in previous work, we have created haptic virtual environments that can simulate the cutting of rat skin, liver, and tendon, as well as empty scissors. Preliminary perceptual experiments showed that the users rank the stiffness of real and virtual tissues similarly. Tests also demonstrated that users are not generally adept at identifying tissue types by haptic feedback in either real or virtual domains. The use of “haptic recordings,” rather than reality-based models, was simple and computationally efficient. However, the simulations lack flexibility because only the exact information obtained during data acquisition can be displayed.