Deformable mesh simulation for virtual laparoscopic cholecystectomy training

Virtual simulation of laparoscopic surgery is getting attention for training novice surgeons and medical residents for practice. Virtual surgical simulation has many advantages because it can provide users with a safe environment without animal or patient subjects. Although several solutions are available in the market, there are no reported studies with detailed technical descriptions of the virtual simulation of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal surgery), one of the major surgeries performed using laparoscopic surgical procedures. Here, we present a realistic laparoscopic cholecystectomy training simulator. The system was developed by applying state-of-the-art computer graphical technologies using an open source library and proposing a new method of deformable mesh carving. The deformable mesh carving is a volume-based method using potential fields and hexahedral finite element method. In this paper, we describe the detailed techniques used to realize the laparoscopic cholecystectomy simulation. The experimental and user study results prove that the presented system simulates the cholecystectomy procedures in real time with high degree of realism and fidelity.