Virtual Orthopedic Surgery Training

texto completo:  http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/eosourina/Papers/CGA.pdf

Virtual reality has already become a mode of computer interaction, one now integrating into every

aspect of modern society. In engineering, new mechanisms can be virtually designed, manufactured, and

tested. Immersive VR in architecture lets users walk through virtual buildings in real time and perform inte-

rior design. Virtual studios create any desired environment for making new programs on television. In

entertainment, immersive VR systems generate another world in a computer and channel information about

this world to all our senses.

Medicine is one of the most promising areas for emerging computer graphics and VR techniques. VR

training simulators let surgeons practice on virtual body tissue and get the same feedback they would 

experience in performing a real operation. Hybrid VR systems permit medical practitioners to view the 

patient overlaid with 3D data sets derived from 3D scanners, thus providing doctors and surgeons with 

pseudo X-ray vision.

Head-coupled endoscopes assist surgeons in laparo-scopic operations. Not all medical applications demand 

immersive VR systems, however. While currently available immersive VR surgery systems usually require 

expensive hardware and software, we developed a desktop VR orthopedic surgery training system that can 

run on commonly available personal computers.