We have developed a desktop virtual reality system that we call Haptic-GeoZui3D, which brings together 3D user interaction and visualization to provide a compelling environment for AUV path planning. A key component in our system is the PHANTOM haptic device (SensAble Technologies, Inc.), which affords a sense of touch and force feedback – haptics – to provide cues and constraints to guide the ...

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A new framework is proposed to mitigate the adverse effect of time-varying time delays on the passivity of a teleoperation system. To this end, the communication channel with time-varying delays is modeled as a constant-delay channel along with additive output disturbances. Then, disturbance estimator blocks are added in each of the feedforward and feedback paths to estimate these disturbances ...

Many intracardiac procedures can currently be performed on the heart only after it has been arrested, and the patient has been placed on cardio-pulmonary bypass. We have developed a new method for operating on multiple targets inside the beating heart, and describe a procedure for accessing them under virtual-reality (VR)-assisted image guidance that combines real-time ultrasound with a virtual...

Bovine rectal palpation is a necessary skill for a veterinary student to learn. However, lack of resources and welfare issues currently restrict the amount of training available to students in this procedure. Here we present a virtual reality based teaching tool -- the Bovine Rectal Palpation Simulator -- that has been developed as a supplement to existing training methods. When using the simul...

In performing most everyday tasks, we use information from several different sensory modalities, yet our understanding of how these i nputs are integrated is limited. The present study investigated the role of multisensory feedback in the perception of surface roughness, specifically focusing on whether the threshold for distinguishing the roughness of two virtual surfaces was different under v...

The increasing use of robotic assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS) provides an ideal environment for using Augmented Reality (AR) for performing image guided surgery. Seamless synthesis of AR depends on a number of factors relating to the way in which virtual objects appear and visually interact with a real environment. Traditional overlaid AR approaches generally suffer from a loss of dep...

The authors introduce a tool referred to as the Ultimate Intubation Head (UIH) to train medical practitioners' hand-eye coordination in performing endotracheal intubation with the help of augmented reality methods. In this paper we describe the integration of a deployable UIH and present methods for augmented reality registration of real and virtual anatomical models. The assessment of the 52 d...