In recent years, significant resources and research activities worldwide have been invested in the creation of Virtual Reality (VR) environments to help surgeons develop particular skills. The prominent VR specialist, Virtalis was among the first, creating a trainer for minimally invasive therapy. Now, a research team from De Montfort University has begun work on assessing the feasibility for a ‘whole-team’ VR surgical trainer with Virtalis designing and supplying the VR research platform. Dr Seng Chong, an Academic Fellow within the Mechatronics Research Centre at De Montfort, takes up the story.
“Although the skill of a surgeon is vital for a well-functioning surgical team, it is only part of the total picture for the success of any surgical intervention. Recent empirical studies suggest that poor teamwork and ineffective communications within surgical teams are associated with increased likelihood of human error and adverse effects on the patient. Therefore, effective surgical teamwork and communication are essential to accommodate uncertainties within surgical procedures to ensure success. This highlights the importance of training of the whole surgical team to achieve acceptable and safe standards, rather than focusing only on the skills of the surgeon.”
Dr. Chong and his colleagues held discussions with a number of hospital teams before developing a proposal for a VR co-operative training environment. It was at this point that they approached Virtalis for help in creating the detailed specification. While the research team clearly needed a tracking system, head mounted displays (HMD) and haptic devices, all of these separate elements had to function as an integrated system, so the technical expertise of a supplier like Virtalis was deemed particularly important to the project.
As the Mechatronics Research Centre has undertaken extensive work in a range of research projects related to virtual engineering, system modelling and simulation, the team was already well acquainted with Dassault Systemes’ DELMIA suite of products. Virtools is Dassault’s advanced visualisation system, so it was a natural step for the De Montfort team to adopt the technology. With Virtools, the Mechatronics Research Group will be able to develop the desktop-based and large-scale interactive digital mock-ups that are vital for this research.
With assistance from Dassault Systemes, Virtalis has integrated a haptic glove from 5DT directly into Virtools. The high-end HMD chosen is a NVIS nVisor ST high-resolution, see-through unit for augmented reality applications requiring a wide field-of-view and superior SXGA image quality. The NVIS has been partnered with a Cybermind Visette, another see-through HMD, which boasts a resolution of SXGA 1280x1024.
The HMDs are combined with a wireless InterSense IS-900 motion tracking system, featuring six degrees of freedom inertial motion tracking that can be used to track both position and orientation. Ultrasonic range measurements are used for drift correction purposes via an advanced Kalman filter. The IS-900 does not use magnetometers, so metallic interference is not a concern. The surgical team working with the researchers will also wear 5DT Data Glove 14 Ultras, which are capable of measuring finger flexure, as well as the abduction between fingers.
De Montfort is now collaborating with a team from Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, led by Professor Joseph Dias, head of School of Surgery, East Midlands Healthcare Workforce Deanery (South).
“Our research in this new and exciting area has barely begun,” says Dr Chong. “But we hope that our collaboration with the hospital team and Virtalis will prove to be a first step to developing the world’s first VR co-operative trainer for surgical teams.”