Realtime Simulation of Tissue Deformation for the Nasal Endoscopy Simulator (NES)

Endonasal sinus surgery requires a great amount of training before it can be adequately performed. The complicated anatomy involved, the proximity of relevant structures, and the variability of the anatomy due to inborn or iatrogenic variations make several complications possible. Today cadaver dissections are the "gold standard" for surgical training. To overcome the drawbacks of traditional training methods the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics is currently developing a highly interactive medical simulation system for nasal endoscopy and endonasal sinus surgery in cooperation with the Mainz University Hospital. For the simulation of a rhinoscopic procedure not only the realization of the 3-D interaction and the geometric representation of the anatomical structures is necessary, but also a real-time simulation of the deformation behavior constraint by the instrument collisions. The challenge is to close the gap between a maximal degree of realism and the needed real-time conditions.