Development of maxillofacial palpation training system using simplified mesh free method with spring-node element

Abstract

Palpation is important medical diagnostic technic to make right diagnosis of symptomatic state. It requires a lot of palpation experience under leadership of experienced medical doctors. However, there is few practical training for maxillofacial palpation in the dental education in Japan. Then, a palpation training system with virtual model of an affected part is useful to get better at the skill. The coauthor dental doctors hope to develop the virtual training system which can be used to educate dental students to undergo maxillofacial palpation. Hence, a palpation training system for maxillofacial disorder is developed using virtual reality and a haptic interface. The system is consisted of a PC and the haptic device (PHANToM Omni). In particular, it is mainly improved that elastic calculation time is reduced by simplified mesh free method. Consequently, the virtual maxillofacial palpation training system successfully works at the real-time operation.