Hoeryong Jung

GPU-based Real-Time Soft Tissue Deformation with Cutting and Haptic Feedback

This article describes a series of contributions in the field of real-time simulation of soft tissue biomechanics. These contributions address various requirements for interactive simulation of complex surgical procedures. In particular, this article presents results in the areas of soft tissue deformation, contact modelling, simulation of cutting, and haptic rendering, which are all relevant to a variety of medical interventions. The contributions described in this article share a common underlying model of deformation and rely on GPU implementations to significantly improve computation times. This consistency in the modelling technique and computational approach ensures coherent results as well as efficient, robust and flexible solutions.

Analytical and Psychophysical Comparison of Bilateral Teleoperators for Enhanced Perceptual Performance

This paper focuses on the human perception capabilities for haptic interaction with remote environments. The perception capabilities are compared for two well-known control methods with two kinds of haptic cues. Analytical and psychophysical methods are used to analyze the performance. The first control method aims at maximizing the transparency of the remote interactions (i.e., transparency-based method), whereas the second one aims at maximizing the detection and discrimination abilities of the human operator (i.e., perception-based method). For each of these two control methods, two kinds of haptic cues are studied, which use position and force cues from remote environments. Hybrid matrix formulation is employed, and it is analyzed in the frequency domain for these studies. Psychophysical experiments are then conducted for human-centered evaluation and comparison of the control methods. Analytical and experimental results clearly show that the perception-based method, when compared with the transparency-based method, enhances the human operators perceptual capabilities of remote environments irrespective of force cues. For each of the two control methods, the force cues always contribute more to the increase in perceptual sensitivity when compared with the case of position cues.

Real-time cutting simulation of meshless deformable object using dynamic bounding volume hierarchy

This paper proposes a novel method for a real‐time cutting simulation of deformable objects using meshless method. The method utilizes a rapid refinement of topological relations among the simulation nodes of meshless deformable objects. Topological relations are defined as an undirected graph based on a visibility criterion. The graph connects the adjacent nodes that lie within a support of each node. The topological relations are refined by removing the edges of the graph that is intersected by the cut surface during the cutting simulation. Our approach utilizes a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) to accelerate the computation of the intersection test. The BVH reconstruction algorithm is proposed to account for the cases where pieces of the object are completely cut out from the object. Algorithms to examine the connectivity among simulation nodes and accordingly reconstructing the BVH using two‐level BVH are presented. The proposed approach achieves real‐time cutting simulation of deformable objects through the rapid refinement of the topological relation. In addition, the computational performance of the cutting procedure is preserved during the entire simulation, thanks to the real‐time reconstruction of the BVH. Copyright

A psychophysical evaluation of haptic controllers: viscosity perception of soft environments

In this paper, human viscosity perception in haptic teleoperation systems is thoroughly analyzed. An accurate perception of viscoelastic environmental properties such as viscosity is a critical ability in several contexts, such as telesurgery, telerehabilitation, telemedicine, and soft-tissue interaction. We study and compare the ability to perceive viscosity from the standpoint of detection and discrimination using several relevant control methods for the teleoperator. The perception-based method, which was proposed by the authors to enhance the operators kinesthetic perception, is compared with the conventional transparency-based control method for the teleoperation system. The fidelity-based method, which is a primary method among perception-centered control schemes in teleoperation, is also studied. We also examine the necessity and impact of the remote-site force information for each of the methods. The comparison is based on a series of psychophysical experiments measuring absolute threshold and just noticeable difference for all conditions. The results clearly show that the perception-based method enhances both detection and discrimination abilities compare with other control methods. The results further show that the fidelity-based method confers a better discrimination ability than the transparency-based method, although this is not true with respect to detection ability. In addition, we show that force information improves viscosity detection for all control methods, as predicted from previous theoretical analysis, but improves the discrimination threshold only for the perception-based method.

A method for generating cut surface in surgery simulation

This paper presents a method for generating a cut surface of a deformable object, which is rendered by a electrical instrument in surgery simulation. Meshfree methods are employed to simulate the deformation of the sof body objects. A mesh generation method is proposed to provide a cut surface generated by electrical cutting. Th proposed method is based on the idea that element deletion can be classified into cases of intersection between th meshless deformable model and the electrical instrument. Boundary smoothing and mesh refinement are included t improve the quality of generated surface. The proposed method provides simplicity in implementation, stability during progressive cutting, and efficiency in computation cost.

Psychophysical evaluation of control scheme designed for optimal kinesthetic perception in scaled teleoperation

This paper focuses on psychophysical evaluation of the control scheme developed to optimize the kinesthetic perception during the scaled teleoperation. The control problem is formulated as a multi-objective constrained optimization. The objective function is a metric which quantifies the detection and discrimination capacity of the human operator. The constraints are position tracking accuracy and absolute stability of the scaled teleoperation. Two popular control architectures, i.e., the position-position and the force-position control architectures are considered in this paper. The method of limits is employed in this paper to conduct the psychophysical experiments and evaluation. Results show that the developed control scheme is more effective in increasing the detection and discrimination capacity of human subjects as compared to the traditional transparency-optimized control laws.

Haptic Rendering of Drilling into Femur Bone with Graded Stiffness

This paper presents haptic rendering method of drilling into femur bone with graded stiffness. Volume rendering is preferred than surface rendering in drilling or burr simulation because the volume rendering can contain information such as density and rigidity of each voxel. However, it is difficult to implement real-time graphics and haptic rendering because of the large computational workload. Therefore, we propose surface-data-based haptic rendering of drilling process of stiffness graded material. Contact surface update and bone erosion algorithms are suggested to implement the drilling process. The proposed algorithms are adapted to the closed reduction and internal fixation surgery simulator. The proposed method allows the user of the simulation to feel the different forces according to the drilled depth.

Markerless tracking for augmented reality for image-guided Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography

This paper proposes a markerless tracking method with adaptive pose estimation for augmenting 3D organ models on top of the endoscopic image for Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). While many applications of augmented reality (AR) to surgeries need special markers to track the cameras position and orientation in the live video, our method employs the feature detection techniques to track the endoscopic camera. One of the most difficult problems when applying feature-based method to AR for ERCP is the lack of texture & highly specular reflection surface of duodenum in the endoscopic images, which does not provide a stable number of keypoints to track in the endoscopic video sequence. By introducing an adaptive weight function in the combination of reference-current frame tracking with previous-current frame tracking, we enhance the tracking performance remarkably. The proposed method is evaluated using an endoscopic video of a real ERCP and 3D duodenum model reconstructed from CT data of the patient. The result shows real-time performance and robustness of the method.

High fidelity haptic rendering for deformable objects undergoing topology changes

The relevance of haptic feedback for minimally invasive surgery has been demonstrated at numerous counts. However, the proposed methods often prove inadequate to handle correct contact computation during the complex interactions or topological changes that can be found in surgical interventions. In this paper, we introduce an approach that allows for accurate computation of contact forces even in the presence of topological changes due to the simulation of soft tissue cutting. We illustrate this approach with a simulation of cataract surgery, a typical example of microsurgery.

Surface-Data-Based Haptic Rendering for Simulation of Surgery of Closed Reduction and Internal Fixation

This paper presents a surface-data-based haptic rendering method for simulation of surgery of closed reduction and internal fixation (CRIF). Volumetric data is often employed in the simulation of bone surgery because the volume rendering can easily handle information such as density and rigidity of each voxel. However, it is difficult to implement real-time graphics and haptic rendering because of the large computational workload. Therefore, we propose a surface-data- based haptic rendering method for real-time rendering. Mechanical properties and graphics of the inner part of the bone should be modeled in addition to the surface data to simulate drilling into the bone. An algorithm is developed to construct the surface of the drilled hole. This method allows the user of the simulation to feel the varying forces according to the drilled depth.