NA-MIC Project Weeks

Back to Projects List

Development of a virtual reality and haptic training simulation for ultrasound-guided catheter insertion

Key Investigators

• Naomi Catwell (ÉTS, Canada)
• Simon Drouin (ÉTS, Canada)
• Rafael Palomar (Oslo University Hospital, Norway)
• Steve Pieper (Isomics, Inc., United States)

Project Description

Context Ultrasound-guided IV catheter insertion is the most commonly performed medical procedure in hospitals. However, it has been associated with high complication rates. Virtual reality and haptic enabled simulations may improve training for such a procedure. The aim of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of haptic feedback for ultrasound-guided peripheral IV insertion training in a virtual reality simulation.

Current state A virtual reality training and evaluation simulator equipped with real-time ultrasound image rendering and a haptic force feedback model has been developed with Unity and two Haply Robotics Inverse3 devices.

Project Week In the context of Project Week, the aim is to improve the simulation with skin deformation physics using SOFA-Slicer. This would improve perception of depth and identification of the needle insertion point in the virtual environment.

Objective

1. Integration of SOFA-Slicer Project into the Unity simulation
2. Simulation of believable skin deformation with SOFA physics

Approach and Plan

1. Get a working version of a recent SOFA-Slicer version on Windows. See this forked version of Slicer-SOFA and lungsimple.py sample project
2. Re-integrate SOFA with the existing simulation - use SOFA version 24.12
3. Define an interactive SOFA configuration file to simulate forearm skin deformation in Unity
4. Integrate a version of Slicer-SOFA into the Slicer configuration file of the simulation
5. Work with SOFA-Slicer project team

Progress and Next Steps

1. Project Week 41 - familiarisation with SOFA and a first integration of SOFA into Unity

Illustrations

Background and References

No response