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SutureHap: A Suture Simulator with Haptic Feedback

Surgical procedures require a high degree of complexity and difficulty. Consequently, extensive preparation in the learning process of medical students is necessary in order to perform suturing tasks successfully. Some authors suggest that a minimum of 750 operations are needed to acquire the experience to perform correctly surgical procedures. Moreover, current laws establish standards if corpses and animals are used as medical learning environments; as a result, the development of skills and processes is hindered. This paper introduces the development of a virtual environment for training suture skills: SutureHap, which uses two Sensable Phantom Omni haptic devices. To create a proper simulation of the human skin which must fulfill graphic and physical characteristics, NVIDIA PhysX libraries were usea. Some of these libraries were originally defined to represent cloths; however, in this work some parameters were adjusted to obtain the desired simulation. An architecture that facilitates the integration of haptic devices was designed. A simplified method of collision detection and haptic feedback generation was created. This enabled the reduction of complexity generated during collision detection, and it diminished the time to develop the virtual environment. Tweezers, thread and needle models were added in the virtual environment. Due to fact that PhysX exploits GPU processing, response time was improved during modeling of the skin. Additionally, suturing tasks were designed by taking into consideration real procedures made by medical experts. The acquisition of skills and competencies in suture process are increased through haptic devices due to the fact that they can send tactile sensations. These environments decrease costs and risks, and provide real sensations as the ones that can be perceived in current learning environments. Finally, an evaluation focused on the perception of this environment was made by students. Preliminary results are promising, and it is expected that this environment facilitates the acquisition of suture skills.