Interactive Hepatic Parenchymal Transection Simulation with Haptic Feedback

Background: Liver resection involves surgical removal of a portion of the liver. It is used to treat liver tumors and liver injuries. The complexity and high-risk nature of this surgery prevents novice doctors from practicing it on real patients. Virtual surgery simulation was developed to simulate surgical procedures to enable medical professionals to be trained without requiring a patient, a cadaver, or an animal. Therefore, there is a strong need for the development of a liver resection surgery simulation system. We propose a real-time simulation system that provides realistic visual and tactile feedback for hepatic parenchymal transection. Methods: The tetrahedron structure and cluster-based shape matching are used for physical model construction, topology update of a three-dimensional liver model soft deformation simulation, and haptic rendering acceleration. During the liver parenchyma separation simulation, a tetrahedral mesh is used for surface triangle subdivision and surface generation of the surgical wound. The shape-matching cluster is separated via component detection on an undirected graph constructed using the tetrahedral mesh. Results: In our system, cluster-based shape matching is implemented on a GPU, whereas haptic rendering and topology updates are implemented on a CPU. Experimental results show that haptic rendering can be performed at a high frequency (> 900 Hz), whereas mesh skinning and graphics rendering can be performed at 45 fps. The topology update can be executed at an interactive rate (> 10 Hz) on a single CPU thread. Conclusion: We propose an interactive hepatic parenchymal transection simulation method based on a tetrahedral structure. The tetrahedral mesh simultaneously supports physical model construction, topology update, and haptic rendering acceleration.