VR Surgical Simulation

Research Groups in Surgical Simulation and Robotics

Biorobotics Lab at the University of Washington

Led by Blake Hannaford and Jacob Rosen. Measurement of tissue properties, haptic interfaces, psychophysics experiments.

CESEI
Director: Karim Qayumi. Measurements of kinematic and force data in human OR during laparoscopy for direct comparison to VR. Research in the influence of haptic quality of surgical performance in VR.

Delft University of Technology
Many projects in minimally invasive surgery and interventional techniques. One is on image processing and visualisation. 3D virtual colonoscopy.

University of Utrecht
Frank van der Stappen's group has worked amongst other things on a surgery simulation supporting cuts and finite element deformation and a computational technique for interactive needle insertions in 3D non-linear material.

ETH Zurich: Computer Vision Lab
Laboratory led by Gabor Szekely. Projects varying from augmented reality, to haptic interaction with CT data, a hysteroscopy simulation, and generation of anatomic models for surgery simulation.

CIMIT: Simulation
Lead by Steven Dawson. Interventional cardiology training system, VIRGIL chest trauma training system, tissue mechanics measurement with a minimally invasive tool (collaboration with Harvard Biorobotics Lab), CELTS computer enhanced laparoscopic training system.

MIT Touch Lab
Developement of laparoscopic surgical environment. Research on tissue mechanics and fast simulation techniques.

Harvard Biorobotics Lab
DirectorRobert Howe. Experiments in obtaining mechanical tissue properties, tissue modeling, virtual fixtures for robotics cardiac surgery, analysis of the impact on task performance on a telerobotic simulated-dissection task, tactile sensors for robotics surgery, real-time 3D ultrasound for guidance in robotic heart surgery, vibro-tactile sensors and displays, and tactile imaging.

Vesta: Virtual Environments for Surgical Training and Augmentation @ UCB, UCSF and UCSB
Developement of a simulator for laparoscopic cholecystectomy, research on virtual fixtures, fast finite element models, haptic control and psychophysics.

University of Tuebingen
Acquisition of tissue mechanics models. Most of the site is unfortunately not in English (yet).

Industry: VR Based Simulation

Immersion
Maker of laparoscopic simulation interfaces, both with and without force feedback and complete workstation for endoscopic, endovascular and vascular access simulation.

Reachin
Core product of the Reachin is software to develop haptic applications. They also make one medical application: software with force feedback to train for laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

SimSurgery
Laparoscopic surgery simulator

Surgical Science
Developer of simulation software for laparoscopic-skills training, with extra modules for gynaecology.
Verify
Endoscopic tower: system without force-feedback to train the use of a laparoscope.

Xitact
Developer of software and hardware for laparoscopic-skills training.

Industry: Mixed VR and Physical Simulators

Haptica
Company based in Dublin, Ireland that makes the ProMIS simulator. This simulator combines virtual reality with real physical models. Instant feedback is calculated based with the key metrice being completion time, path length, and smoothness

Industry: Physical Simulators

Simulab
Company that makes medical simulation products for a variety of specialties. The laparoscopic simulators are

Research

Projects
Haptic Quality VS Cost
Haptic Illusions
Floating Rock

Overviews
Haptic Hardware
Haptic Libraries

Links
Research Groups
Industry