Haptic User Interfaces and Practice-based Learning for Minimally Invasive Surgical Training
This work addresses the need for better surgical training tools for medical professionals, but it is incremental as it reviews existing technologies without presenting new methods or results.
The paper reviews haptic user interface frameworks and toolkits to develop affordable visuo-haptic simulators for minimally invasive surgical training, aiming to improve practice-based education by enhancing learners' knowledge in safe conditions.
Recent advances in haptic hardware and software technology have generated interest in novel, multimodal interfaces based on the sense of touch. Such interfaces have the potential to revolutionize the way we think about human computer interaction and open new possibilities for simulation and training in a variety of fields. In this paper we review several frameworks, APIs and toolkits for haptic user interface development. We explore these software components focusing on minimally invasive surgical simulation systems. In the area of medical diagnosis, there is a strong need to determine mechanical properties of biological tissue for both histological and pathological considerations. Therefore we focus on the development of affordable visuo-haptic simulators to improve practice-based education in this area. We envision such systems, designed for the next generations of learners that enhance their knowledge in connection with real-life situations while they train in mandatory safety conditions.