A Virtual Puncture Surgery System Based on Multi-Layer Soft Tissue and Force Mesh

Abstract

Puncture is a common operation in surgery, which involves all kinds of tissue materials with different geometry and mechanical properties. As a new cross-disciplinary research area, Virtual Surgery (VS) makes simulation of soft tissue in puncture operation possible in virtual environment. In this paper, we introduce a VS-based puncture system composed by three-layer soft tissue, simulated with spherical harmonic function (SHF), which is covered with a force mesh, constructed by mass spring model (MSM). The two models are combined together with a parameter of SHF named surface radius, which provides MSM with real-time deformation data needed in force calculation. Meanwhile, force calculation, divided into the surface spring force and the puncture damping force, makes the force presentation better accord to the corresponding tissue characteristics. Moreover, a deformation resumption algorithm is leveraged to simulate the resumption phenomenon of the broken tissue surface. In evaluation experiment, several residents are invited to grades our model along with other four mainstream soft tissue models in terms of 7 different indicators. After the evaluation, the scores are analyzed by a comprehensive weighted grading method. Experiment results show that the proposed model has better performance during puncture operation than other models, and can well simulate surface resumption phenomenon when tissue surface is broken.