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The design of simulators for surgical training and planning poses a great number of technical challenges. Therefore the focus of systems and algorithms was mostly on the more restricted minimal invasive surgery. This paper tackles the more general problem of open surgery and presents efficient solutions to several of the main difficulties. In addition to an improved collision detection scheme for computing interactions with even heavily moving tissue, a hierarchical system for the haptic rendering has been realized in order to reach the best performance of haptic feedback. A flexible way of modeling complex surgical tools out of simple basic components is proposed. In order to achieve a realistic and at the same time fast relaxation of the tissue, the approach of explicit finite elements has been substantially improved. We are able to demonstrate realistic simulations of interactive open surgery scenarios.

We present IVORY a newly developed, platform-independent framework for physics based visualization. IVORY is especially designed for information visualization applications and multidimensional graph layout. It is fully implemented in Java 1.1 and its architecture features client server setup, which allows us to run the visualization even on thin clients. In addition, VRML 2.0 exports can be viewed by any VRML plugged-in WWW browser. Individual visual metaphors are invoked into IVORY via an advanced plug-in mechanism, where plug-ins can be implemented by any experienced user. The configuration of IVORY is accomplished using a script language, called IVML. Some interactive visualization examples, such as the integration of a haptic interface illustrate the performance and versatility of our system. Our current implementation supports NT 4.0.

Presents a framework for the interactive simulation of surgical cuts, such as those practiced in surgical treatment. Unlike most existing methods, our framework is based on tetrahedral volume meshes providing more topological flexibility. In order to keep the representation consistent, we apply adaptive subdivision schemes dynamically during the simulation. The detection of collisions between the surgical tool and the tissue is accomplished by using an axis-aligned bounding-box hierarchy which was adapted for deformable objects. For haptic rendering and feedback, we devised a mechanical scalpel model which accounts for the most important interaction forces between the scalpel and the tissue. The relaxation is computed using a localized, semi-implicit ODE (ordinary differential equation) solver. The achieved quality and performance of the presented framework is demonstrated using a human soft-tissue model.