Abstract
Evidence supporting the clinical efficacy of clinical breast examination (CBE) emerged from recent studies recognized the need for CBE training to increase the physician's clinical skills in detecting subsurface tumors. A virtual reality system utilizing the new developed five-fingers haptic interface HIRO-II was created to address this need. The simulation considers multiple fingers contact and the interaction between the forces exerted by each finger. A physical-based model using Finite Element Method (FEM) with elementary displacement method was used to calculate the real reaction forces. This paper also presented a simple method on how to simulate the non-linearity aspect of the breast tissue. An evaluation of the system based on subjective factors is proposed. The results show how the virtual breast could generate nonlinear forces that are very close to that generated by the real training model.
