Virtual environment technologies

Virtual environments (VEs) provide a means for humans to interact with computers in a natural and intuitive way. Such systems aim to exploit the spatial and perceptual processing skills of humans by presenting them with a real-time, 3D synthetic environment that they can experience from a first-person perspective. VEs afford the opportunity for the user to explore and interact with the synthetic world, leading to a sense of involvement or immersion within the VE. One application of VEs is training, whereby users can rehearse costly or hazardous procedures safely within the VE. From the early days of VEs, the idea of using these emerging technologies to assist surgical training has been promoted, leading to a significant amount of research activity in this area. However, the problems and challenges associated with constructing a compelling and effective surgical simulator are many and, whilst significant progress has been made in recent years, much still remains to be done. This review gives an overview of the component technologies, that make up a generic VE system. Three types of surgical simulator, together with their attributes, are identified and how these map onto current VE technology is explored. Finally, some speculations as to future developments are offered.