Augmented Reality Haptic Simulation for Craniospinal Surgical Training and Sensory-Motor Skill Evaluation

This thesis focuses on the development of a suite of medical modules for the ImmersiveTouch Surgical Simulator. The ImmersiveTouch Simulator is a system that combines augmented reality along with user head tracking and haptics to create a virtual working environment that the user can easily observe from multiple perspectives; this system also provides haptic feedback when users interact with virtual objects and volumes. The goal of this project was to investigate the viability of creating a multitude of applications for this platform, ranging from training and examining the clinical skills of surgeons in simulated medical procedures to abstract evaluation of a persons sensory-motor aptitude. Modules were developed using the Sensimmer SDK The ImmersiveTouch Surgical Simulator also serves as a solid research platform due to the ability to record a surgeons precise movements and score them objectively using the same simulations and scoring algorithms. Since the simulations are run from software and do not require any additional materials or equipment, evaluations can be repeatedly performed and data is automatically collected as compared to traditional methods such as physical manikin based evaluations. Several modules developed as part of this thesis were also used in research studies. The results from those studies will be presented and evaluated in this work.