Development of a Visio‐Haptic Integrated Dental Training Simulation System

Abstract

The use of haptic devices in the medical field has become widespread in the last decade. In this study, a visio-haptic dental training system is developed using haptic and stereoscopic devices. Several advantages are offered by such a simulation system, including effective learning without any fear of making mistakes on a patient, possibility of repeating various dental operations, ease of evaluating student performance, and low-cost dental training even without an instructor. In this study, the biomechanical properties of enamel, dentin, pulp, and caries were modeled, and the parameters were fine-tuned to provide more realistic haptic sensations. Maxillary and mandibular dental arches and various dental instruments such as mouth mirror, probe, and dental drills were modeled in a 3D virtual environment. Probing and cavity preparation on teeth were implemented in the training system. Various graphical rendering methods (Surface Rendering in CPU, Iso-Surface Rendering, and Ray-Casting in GPU) were implemented and compared in performance. The implementation details and the software structure used are described. Finally, detailed performance tests by a group of dentists are conducted, and the results of these tests are presented. The performance tests found that dentists have a strong motivation to use the system and that in the aspects of usability, clarity, effectiveness, help/support provided, and satisfaction, the users' responses were above average.

Egocentric versus Allocentric Spatial Ability in Dentistry and Haptic Virtual Reality Training

“…Simulation‐based surgical training systems have emerged in the last several years as adjuncts in minimally invasive procedure training and the learning of new motor skills (Issenberg & Scalese, ; Scalese, Obeso, & Issenberg, ). In dentistry, haptic technology has been applied to various components of prosthetic laboratory phases and dental skill training (Buchanan, , ; Konukseven, Önder, Mumcuoglu, & Kisnisci, ; Marras, Nikolaidis, Mikrogeorgis, Lyroudia, & Pitas, ). Although there is increasing evidence from experimental psychology that the use of immersive virtual realities and haptic technology may require more egocentric than allocentric spatial processing (Kozhevnikov & Garcia, ; Volcic & Kappers, ), little is known about how these virtual environments interact with students' spatial abilities.…”

Clinical Computing in Dentistry

“…Creation of new models for diagnosis and treatment for technically challenging patients can be made possible by the dynamic association of operation on real organ with imaging data. The VR and robotics, as new technologies will have great impact on health care in the near future [19]. This can help experienced surgeons, extending safe limits for more efficient operations [36,39].…”

Improved simulation of virtual bone drilling surgery with a voxel-based model

“…This method can match the characteristics of the material to the internal data information of the bone model so that an anisotropic physical bone model can be established. Over the past years, many virtual simulation systems with visual and haptic feedback have been developed [10][11][12][13]. Based on the previous work of other researchers and to obtain more accurate virtual bone drilling force in the simulation of spinal drilling surgery simulation, this study mainly studies the virtual drilling simulation technology based on voxel models.…”