On improving the deformation and display modules of surgery simulation systems

Surgery simulation is playing an increasingly important role in medical training, surgery planning and telemedicine. Since the effectiveness of simulation training is directly related to the realism of the simulator, engineers are constantly applying new techniques to improve all aspects of the visualization, interaction and haptic components. In this paper, we present two improvements we have made to the surgery simulator, namely enhancing the deformation module based on a heterogeneous deformation algorithm and improving the visualization module, using a non-photorealistic rendering module and a commercially available stereoscopic visualization kit. The resulting simulator can provide surgery trainees with a more immersive and realistic training environment, while maintaining a high simulation frame rate.