Development of a surgical simulator for laparoscopic esophageal procedures

This paper describes a surgical simulator of laparoscopic esophageal procedures with virtual reality (VR) technology for training purposes. Because the success of the procedure is highly influenced by the number of practices, a VR based simulator is a promising training medium in terms of safety and expense. For the realistic simulation of tool-tissue interactions, a physically based soft tissue model of the esophagus and an algorithm of cutting on the lower esophagus skin are implemented. The tissue parameters from in vivo animal experiments are combined with geometric organ models segmented from the visible human dataset and integrated into the laparoscopic surgical simulation system consisting of haptic interface devices inside an abdominal mannequin and a graphic display. This system can be used to demonstrate deformation and cutting of the esophagus, where the user can haptically interact with the virtual soft tissues and see the corresponding organ deformation on the visual display simultaneously.