Dental Simulator: Bi-Manual VR-Based Simulation of Dental Surgery
Recent years have seen the proliferation of VR-based dental simulators using a wide variety of different VR configurations. Differences in technologies and setups used result in important differences in degree of realism. These include 3D stereoscopic rendering and visual alignment of the user's hands with the virtual tools. While each new dental simulator typically is associated with some form of evaluation study, only few comparative studies have been carried out to determine the benefits of various simulation aspects. We developed a bimanual VR simulator using an HMD and two haptic devices that provides an immersive environment with both 3D stereoscopic rendering and hand-tool alignment. The effect of stereoscopic 3D is surprising and demands further research in settings with small target objects.
The bimanual haptic device setup, which will be register in the VR using a reference VR controller pose.
The physical device setup while the simulator is in use.
A dental student of Thammasat University is using our simulator (as part of a user study).
40 dental students were trained using our VR dental simulator, who reduced their errors based on evaluation by two independent experts dentists.
The in-game view of the simulator which is rendered in stereoscopic 3D inside a VR HMD. The mirror is controlled by the left haptic device, the drill hand-pience by the right haptic device.
We model all teeth with 3 layers: enamel, dentin and pulp. This is tooth #36 (first mandibular molar).
Our tooth #16 model mesh (first maxillary molar).
The pulp has realistic chamber and orifice amount and shape. Here you can also see the crown thickness.
The shape of the dentin is extruding towards the cusps of the crown.
Top-view of an acceptable drilling outcome (flat shading rendering).
An overdrilled drilling outcome.
Publications
- The effect of 3D stereopsis and hand-tool alignment on learning effectiveness and skill transfer of a VR-based simulator for dental training, PLOS ONE, 2023. Data
- Perceived Realism of Haptic Rendering Methods for Bimanual High Force Tasks: Original and Replication Study, Nature Scientific Reports 13, 2023.
- The Impact of 3D Stereopsis and Hand-Tool Alignment on Effectiveness of a VR-based Simulator for Dental Training, IEEE ICHI, 2022.
- A Shared Virtual Environment for Dental Surgical Skill Training, IEEE VR, 2021.
- Realistic Haptic Feedback for Material Removal in Medical Simulations, Haptics Symposium, 2020.
- A Continuous Material Cutting Model with Haptic Feedback for Medical Simulations, IEEE VR, 2019.
- A Volumetric Penetration Measure for 6-DOF Haptic Rendering of Streaming Point Clouds, IEEE World Haptics, 2017.
Videos
Dental Simulator User Study (Root Canal Access Opening)
40 dental students were trained using our VR dental simulator, who reduced their errors
based on evaluation by two independent experts dentists.