A Survey of Visuo-Haptic Simulation in Surgical Training

Surgeons must accomplish complex technical and intellectual tasks that can generate unexpected and serious challenges with little or no room for error. In the last decade, computer simulations have played an increasing role in surgical training, pre-operative planning, and biomedical research. Specifically, visuo-haptic simulations have been the focus of research to develop advanced e-Learning systems facilitating surgical training. The cost of haptic hardware was reduced through mass scale production and as haptics gained popularity in the gaming industry. Visuo-haptic simulations combine the tactile sense with visual information and provide training scenarios with a high degree of reality. For surgical training, such scenarios can be used as ways to gain, improve, and assess resident and expert surgeons' skills and knowledge.