Surgical simulators integrating virtual and physical anatomies

According to literature evidences, simulation is of utmost importance for training purposes and for innovative surgical strategies assessment. Nowadays the market offers mainly two kind of simulators: rubber anatomies or virtual environments, each one with advantages and drawbacks. In this paper we describe a strategy to develop patientspecific simulators using a hybrid approach: silicone models of abdominal organs sensorized with electromagnetic coils, to acquire deformations, coupled with a virtual scene. As demonstrated, this approach allows to mix benefits of a real interaction with the physical replicas with the possibility to enrich the virtual visualization with add-ons and features difficult to obtain in the real environment. Copyright © 2011 for the individual papers by the papers' authors.