We have built a hand-held palette for touch-based interaction in virtual reality. This palette incorporates a high-resolution digitizing touch screen for input. It is see-through, and therefore does not occlude objects displayed behind it. These properties make it suitable for direct manipulation techniques in a range of virtual reality display systems. We implemented several interaction techni...

Virtual surgery simulators are an emerging training method for medical specialists. A number of techniques have previously been proposed for simulating tissue for these simulators, one of which is the mass-spring model. This paper aims to improve upon the perceived realism of virtual simulator systems by redesigning the underlying physics algorithms so that accurate simulations with full and sm...

Just as computer graphics is concerned with synthesizing and rendering visual images, computer haptics is the art and science of developing software algorithms that synthesize computer generated forces to be displayed to the user for perception and manipulation of virtual objects through touch. The goal of haptic rendering is to enable a user to touch, feel, and manipulate virtual objects throu...

Haptics technologies are frequently used in virtual environments to allow participants to touch virtual objects. Medical applications are no exception and a wide variety of commercial and bespoke haptics hardware solutions have been employed to aid in the simulation of medical procedures. Intuitively the use of haptics will improve the training of the task. How...

CONTEXT Pathology changes the consistency of the tissues. OBJECTIVE To prospectively assess the accuracy of per-abdominal US elastography in the form of acoustic radiation force impulse--virtual touch tissue quantification (ARFI-VTQ) and eSie touch elasticity imaging in characterizing and differentiating inflammatory pancreatic diseases. PATIENTS One-hundred and 66 patients from among the p...

Evaluating products in virtual environments is constrained by the inability of ecommerce to provide a touch-and-feel experience compared to the way to experience products in traditional retail stores. Research has shown that this limitation could be reduced by enabling users to experience products virtually by providing a stimulating virtual product experience, which is reflected in the degree ...

Background: The touch preparation technique is an accurate and rapid method, and when used as intraoperative consultation examination technique it preserves a good amount of tissue for paraffin embedded sections. This study aimed at examining the accuracy of the touch preparation technique by comparing its diagnosis with that of final pathological diagnosis made by microscopic examinations. ...