VIRTUAL ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY TRAINING ON PERSONAL COMPUTER

Surgical training is one of the most promising areas in medicine where 3-D computer graphics and virtual reality techniques are emerging. This paper provides an advanced report on our project that aims to create virtual reality tools for training medical students and for improving skills and efficiency of orthopedic surgeons in internal fixation of bone fractures. The paper describes the whole pipeline from the CT scanner through the Unix-workstation to the personal computer where eventually the program works. We also describe the methods and mathematical models that allowed us to implement the ultimate goal of the project—to allow the surgeons to perform training surgical operations even at their home computers without any special expensive hardware devices. This project was initiated in co-operation between NTU and SGH and currently continues as an international project.