To “Sketch-a-Scratch”

A surface can be harsh and raspy, or smooth and silky, and everything in between. We are used to sense these features with our fingertips as well as with our eyes and ears: the exploration of a surface is a multisensory experience. Tools, too, are often employed in the interaction with surfaces, since they augment our manipulation capabilities. “Sketch-a-Scratch” is a tool for the multisensory exploration and sketching of surface textures. The user’s actions drive a physical sound model of real materials’ response to interactions such as scraping, rubbing or rolling. Moreover, different input signals can be converted into 2D visual surface profiles, thus enabling to experience them visually, aurally and haptically

A novel haptic model and environment for maxillofacial surgical operation planning and manipulation

This paper presents a practical method and a new haptic model to support manipulations of bones and their segments during the planning of a surgical operation in a virtual environment using a haptic interface. To perform an effective dental surgery it is important to have all the operation related information of the patient available beforehand in order to plan the operation and avoid any complications. A haptic interface with a virtual and accurate patient model to support the planning of bone cuts is therefore critical, useful and necessary for the surgeons. The system proposed uses DICOM images taken from a digital tomography scanner and creates a mesh model of the filtered skull, from which the jaw bone can be isolated for further use. A novel solution for cutting the bones has been developed and it uses the haptic tool to determine and define the bone-cutting plane in the bone, and this new approach creates three new meshes of the original model. Using this approach the computational power is optimized and a real time feedback can be achieved during all bone manipulations. During the movement of the mesh cutting, a novel friction profile is predefined in the haptical system to simulate the force feedback feel of different densities in the bone

Cross-Platform Presentation of Interactive Volumetric Imagery

Volume data is useful across many disciplines, not just medicine. Thus, it is very important that researchers have a simple and lightweight method of sharing and reproducing such volumetric data. In this paper, we explore some of the challenges associated with volume rendering, both from a classical sense and from the context of Web3D technologies. We describe and evaluate the pro- posed X3D Volume Rendering Component and its associated styles for their suitability in the visualization of several types of image data. Additionally, we examine the ability for a minimal X3D node set to capture provenance and semantic information from outside ontologies in metadata and integrate it with the scene graph

Trends in virtual reality technologies for the learning patient

NextMed convened the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 22 (MMVR 22) conference in 2016. Since 1992, the conference has brought together a diverse group of researchers to share creative solutions for the evolving challenge of integrating virtual reality tools into medical education. Virtual reality (VR) and its enabling technologies utilize hardware and software to simulate environments and encounters where users can interact and learn. The MMVR 22 symposium proceedings contain projects that support a variety of learners: medical students, practitioners, soldiers, and patients. This report will contemplate the trends in virtual reality technologies for patients navigating their medical and healthcare learning. The learning patient seeks more than intervention; they seek prevention. From virtual humans and environments to motion sensors and haptic devices, patients are surrounded by increasingly rich and transformative data-driven tools. Applied data enables VR applications to simulate experience, predict health outcomes, and motivate new behavior. The MMVR 22 presents investigations into the usability of wearable devices, the efficacy of avatar inclusion, and the viability of multi-player gaming. With increasing need for individualized and scalable programming, only committed open source efforts will align instructional designers, technology integrators, trainers, and clinicians. Curriculum and InstructionCurriculum and Instructio

Virtual reality training and assessment in laparoscopic rectum surgery

Background: Virtual-reality (VR) based simulation techniques offer an efficient and low cost alternative to conventional surgery training. This article describes a VR training and assessment system in laparoscopic rectum surgery. Methods: To give a realistic visual performance of interaction between membrane tissue and surgery tools, a generalized cylinder based collision detection and a multi-layer mass-spring model are presented. A dynamic assessment model is also designed for hierarchy training evaluation. Results: With this simulator, trainees can operate on the virtual rectum with both visual and haptic sensation feedback simultaneously. The system also offers surgeons instructions in real time when improper manipulation happens. The simulator has been tested and evaluated by ten subjects. Conclusions: This prototype system has been verified by colorectal surgeons through a pilot study. They believe the visual performance and the tactile feedback are realistic. It exhibits the potential to effectively improve the surgical skills of trainee surgeons and significantly shorten their learning curve. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Adaptive GPU-accelerated force calculation for interactive rigid molecular docking using haptics

Molecular docking systems model and simulate in silico the interactions of intermolecular binding. Haptics-assisted docking enables the user to interact with the simulation via their sense of touch but a stringent time constraint on the computation of forces is imposed due to the sensitivity of the human haptic system. To simulate high fidelity smooth and stable feedback the haptic feedback loop should run at rates of 500 Hz to 1 kHz. We present an adaptive force calculation approach that can be executed in parallel on a wide range of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for interactive haptics-assisted docking with wider applicability to molecular simulations. Prior to the interactive session either a regular grid or an octree is selected according to the available GPU memory to determine the set of interatomic interactions within a cutoff distance. The total force is then calculated from this set. The approach can achieve force updates in less than 2 ms for molecular structures comprising hundreds of thousands of atoms each, with performance improvements of up to 90 times the speed of current CPU-based force calculation approaches used in interactive docking. Furthermore, it overcomes several computational limitations of previous approaches such as pre-computed force grids, and could potentially be used to model receptor flexibility at haptic refresh rates

The Feeling of Color: A Haptic Feedback Device for the Visually Disabled

Tapson J, Gurari N, Diaz J, et al. The Feeling of Color: A Haptic Feedback Device for the Visually Disabled. Presented at the Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BIOCAS), Baltimore, MD.We describe a sensory augmentation system designed to provide the visually disabled with a sense of color. Our system consists of a glove with short-range optical color sensors mounted on its fingertips, and a torso-worn belt on which tactors (haptic feedback actuators) are mounted. Each fingertip sensor detects the observed objectpsilas color. This information is encoded to the tactor through vibrations in respective locations and varying modulations. Early results suggest that detection of primary colors is possible with near 100% accuracy and moderate latency, with a minimum amount of training