Algorithm design & analysis of multi-scale meshing in surgical simulators

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the multi-scale meshing and simulations used in surgical training simulators with real-time force feedback. To get the a??physically reala?? and a??real-time haptic feedbacka??, it is crucial to get a simplified but still sufficiently real simulation model. A so-called multi-scale meshing, where some areas are modeled using fine meshes and other areas are modeled using coarse meshes, seems attractive and promising. Using a fineness function to reflect the meshing requirements in different areas and adopting an array-based perfect tree, the author implements three different multi-scale meshing, namely, Division algorithm, Merging algorithm and Dynamic. The comparison of algorithms and real experiments show that, multi-scale meshing can achieve real-time haptic feedback and the Dynamical algorithm is more efficient when the simulated interaction between tool tip and tissue changes slightly.