Development of a virtual surgery system with a virtual scalpel

In this paper, a virtual surgery system with a virtual scalpel as the haptic interface is described. The virtual surgery system consists of a PC, a 3D motion tracker and a virtual scalpel newly developed in our lab. The virtual scalpel is very resemble to a real scalpel in its shape and usage and can give the user a quite realistic feeling of force feedback. It is proved that this virtual surgery system is quite helpful for the training of a medical student or an intern to get used to the real operation.