A NEW HAPTIC-BASED TOOL FOR TRAINING IN MEDICINE

This paper describes a new methodology that, making use of a haptic device, can simulate the palpation, a diagnostic manoeuvre aiming to verify the condition of internal organs or anatomical formations. In the developed application, that has the purpose to pick out an anatomical formation and understand its characteristics, the palpation of a soft tissue has been taken in consideration. Particularly the fingertip, the skin and an anatomical formation have been simulated. The user, handling the haptic system at disposal can feel the contact with the skin but also perceiving the presence, the shape and the dimension of the subcutaneous formation (invisible to the operator), that has been modelled as a rigid sphere (like a nodule). The evaluation of the skin deformations, following from the palpation, has been performed through a mass-spring based algorithm, which allows to obtain results in real time.