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. Visuo-haptic simulations combine the tactile sense with visual information and provide realistic training scenarios, to gain, improve, and assess resident and expert surgeons' skills and knowledge. Choosing the suitable haptic hardware, API or framework for developing a visuo-haptic e-Learning system is an important decision that is based on several factors. We present a survey of the most popular hardware and software components for haptic based laparoscopic surgical training system development. We also discuss the assessment and integration of such systems as e-Learning components in hospitals.