Virtual knee arthroscopy using haptic devices and real surgical images

Abstract

Knee arthroscopic surgery is performed on the knee joint by making small incisions on the skin through which an endoscopic camera (arthroscope) is inserted along with miniature surgical instruments. It demands from the surgeons to acquire special motor-skills. A few commercial simulators are available for arthroscopic surgery training however the area is still very open for research and development. In contrast to the common fully-3D way of simulation of knee arthroscopy, we propose a hybrid image-based approach where real arthroscopic videos are converted to panoramic images which are augmented with 3D deformable models of the tissues as well as 3D models of surgical instruments. The motions of the virtual arthroscope and the instruments are controlled by two desktop haptic devices. The hybrid virtual scene is visualized through a moving circular window, which follows the motion of the virtual arthroscope. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.