Date of Award
2008
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Engineering Science
Program
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Supervisor
Dr. Roy Eagleson
Abstract
Surgical procedures are particularly delicate and require high levels of skill for a successful outcome. Creating virtual worlds to assist physicians in developing and improving their surgical skills is a relatively new tool that is now widespread in the area of medical research. This thesis focuses on the use and analysis of video game technology, such as commercially available physics engines for the modeling of surgical training scenarios. The ability to generate a framework capable of rigid and soft body interactions will particularly be discussed. Hardware accelerated physics is a relatively new concept that provides an application with the computational power to simulate physically accurate scenarios. The use of the Physics Processing Units (PPUs) from Ageia’s PhysX, allows the analysis of the impact of hardware acceleration in the virtual scenarios developed. These virtual scenarios benchmark PhysX’s performance in the simulation of real time surgical procedures that require rigid to rigid, rigid to soft and soft to soft body interactions. Some of the scenarios include camera navigation, cloth and soft body simulation and deformable net containers.
Recommended Citation
Gonzalez, Nicolas, "Virtual Reality Scenarios for Medical Applications: An approach using video game technology" (2008). Digitized Theses. 4425.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/4425