Dynamic touch‐enabled virtual palpation

Palpation is an important method of feeling with hands during a physical examination, in which the doctor presses on the surface of the patient body to feel the organs or tissues underneath. In current surgical simulation systems, the lack of an effective sense of touch is still a major problem. In this paper, a dynamic touch‐enabled virtual palpation model is proposed. The palpation force sensing between the index finger and virtual tissues is simulated through a body‐based haptic interaction model. Both contact and frictional forces are evaluated based on Hertz's contact theory, and the press distribution within the contact area is also specified. The non‐linear viscoelastic behavior of typical tissues is mimicked via a volumetric tetrahedral mass‐spring system. Reaction during the palpation is restricted to a local area to highly reduce the order of the dynamic equation of the entire system to guarantee a fast working rate. Mechanical tests have been performed to evaluate the palpation force perception and the realistic behavior of typical human tissues. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  Grigore C. Burdea,et al.  Human performance using virtual reality tumor palpation simulation , 1997, Comput. Graph..

[2]  Mathieu Desbrun,et al.  Dynamic real-time deformations using space & time adaptive sampling , 2001, SIGGRAPH.

[3]  Matthew B Weinger,et al.  Quantifying expert vs. novice skill in vivo for development of a laryngoscopy simulator. , 2003, Studies in health technology and informatics.

[4]  Feodor M. Borodich,et al.  Self-similar problems of elastic contact for non-convex punches , 2002 .

[5]  Pheng-Ann Heng,et al.  A hybrid condensed finite element model with GPU acceleration for interactive 3D soft tissue cutting , 2004, Comput. Animat. Virtual Worlds.

[6]  Demetri Terzopoulos,et al.  Modelling and animating faces using scanned data , 1991, Comput. Animat. Virtual Worlds.

[7]  Grigore C. Burdea,et al.  Virtual reality training for the diagnosis of prostate cancer , 1998, Proceedings. IEEE 1998 Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium (Cat. No.98CB36180).

[8]  Authors' Biographies , 2005 .

[9]  R. Howe,et al.  Dynamic lumped element response of the human fingerpad. , 1999, Journal of biomechanical engineering.

[10]  Grigore C. Burdea,et al.  Virtual reality training simulation for palpation of subsurface tumors , 1997, Proceedings of IEEE 1997 Annual International Symposium on Virtual Reality.

[11]  Ingo R. Titze,et al.  Stress‐strain response of the human vocal ligament and its effect on F0 control , 1994 .

[12]  P.-A. Heng,et al.  A virtual-reality training system for knee arthroscopic surgery , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine.

[13]  Alan Chadburn Burton,et al.  Physiology and biophysics of the circulation : an introductory text , 1965 .

[14]  Kwong-Sak Leung,et al.  Intelligent inferencing and haptic simulation for Chinese acupuncture learning and training , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine.

[15]  K. Bathe.  Finite Element Procedures , 1995 .

[16]  Haruhisa Kawasaki,et al.  Medical palpation of deformable tissue using physics-based model for haptic interface robot (HIRO) , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).

[17]  John Kenneth Salisbury,et al.  Visuohaptic simulation of bone surgery for training and evaluation , 2006, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[18]  Hervé Delingette,et al.  Nonlinear and anisotropic elastic soft tissue models for medical simulation , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[19]  D M Kaufman,et al.  Teaching and assessing clinical skills using virtual reality. , 1997, Studies in health technology and informatics.

[20]  U. Ku,et al.  Endoscopic surgery training using virtual reality and deformable tissue simulation , 2000 .

[21]  R. Howe,et al.  Dynamic contact of the human fingerpad against a flat surface. , 1999, Journal of biomechanical engineering.

[22]  John Kenneth Salisbury,et al.  Simulating human fingers: a soft finger proxy model and algorithm , 2004, 12th International Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, 2004. HAPTICS '04. Proceedings..

[23]  R G Craig,et al.  Finite element analysis of three- and four-unit bridges. , 1989, Journal of oral rehabilitation.

[24]  Cagatay Basdogan,et al.  Virtual environments for medical training: graphical and haptic simulation of laparoscopic common bile duct exploration , 2001 .

[25]  Y. Tai,et al.  Design, fabrication, and testing of micromachined silicone rubber membrane valves , 1999 .

[26]  E. M. Lifshitz,et al.  Theory of Elasticity: Vol. 7 of Course of Theoretical Physics , 1960 .

[27]  George V. Popescu,et al.  Virtual reality-based training for the diagnosis of prostate cancer , 1999, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[28]  Grigore C. Burdea,et al.  Virtual reality simulation modeling for a haptic glove , 1999, Proceedings Computer Animation 1999.

[29]  Francis A. Duck,et al.  Physical properties of tissue : a comprehensive reference book , 1990 .

[30]  Brian Mirtich,et al.  A Survey of Deformable Modeling in Computer Graphics , 1997 .

[31]  Gabriel Taubin,et al.  Estimating the tensor of curvature of a surface from a polyhedral approximation , 1995, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision.