Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Cynthia Bruyns.
The proliferation of surgical simulators would be increased if a common framework and set of virtual instruments existed for use by the application developer. We describe such a framework consisting of a powerful abstraction of a user interaction device, a functional taxonomy of surgical instruments, and a method for linking these components together. A series of example virtual instruments is also provided.
We describe the implementation details of a real-time surgical simulation system with soft-tissue modeling and multi-user, multi-instrument, networked haptics. The simulator is cross-platform and runs on various Unix and Windows platforms. It is written in C++ with OpenGL for graphics; GLUT, GLUI, and MUI for user interface; and supports parallel processing. It allows for the relatively easy introduction of patient-specific anatomy and supports many common file formats. It performs soft-tissue modeling, some limited rigid-body dynamics, and suture modeling. The simulator interfaces to many different interaction devices and provides for multi-user, multi-instrument collaboration over the Internet. Many virtual tools have been created and their interactions with tissue have been implemented. In addition, a number of extra features, such as voice input/output, real-time texture-mapped video input, stereo and head-mounted display support, and replicated display facilities are presented.