Mechanical modeling of soft biological tissues for application in virtual reality based laparoscopy simulators

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Hutter, Roland | Schmitt, Kai-Uwe | Niederer, Peter

Affiliations: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Abstract: For application in a Virtual Reality (VR) based laparoscopic surgery simulator, computationally efficient algorithms for the description of the mechanical behavior of soft tissue have been developed. The explicit Finite Element Method has turned out to be a robust method for this purpose provided that absolute strain formulations are applied. Furthermore, a VR model of a uterus and its adnexe has been generated and simulation results are presented.

Keywords: laparoscopy, virtual reality, finite element simulation, soft tissue modeling

DOI: 10.3233/THC-2000-8102

Journal: Technology and Health Care, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 15-24, 2000