iDental: A Haptic-Based Dental Simulator and Its Preliminary User Evaluation

Abstract

Performance evaluation is indispensable for a surgical simulator to become acceptable. A haptics-based dental simulator (iDental) has been developed and preliminary user evaluation on its first-generation prototype has been carried out to gain the knowledge. Based on detailed requirement analysis of Periodontics procedures, a combined evaluation method including qualitative and quantitative analysis was designed. Construct validity was used to compare the performance difference between two groups of participants (faculty members and dental graduate students). These participants were required to perform three periodontal examination and treatment procedures including periodontal pocket probing, calculus detection, and removal. From the evaluation results, we found that penetration between tool and teeth or cheek will greatly decrease the fidelity of the simulation, therefore, it is necessary to utilize 6-DOF haptic device with both force and torque feedback in dental simulator, and accordingly it is needed to extend point-based rendering to 6-DOF haptic rendering of multiregion contacts. Furthermore, several other key research topics that will enable haptic technology to be effective in a practical dental simulator were identified, including simulation of deformable body such as tongue and gingival, and simulation of occlusion of tongue and cheek on teeth, etc.

Preliminary evaluation of a virtual reality dental simulation system on drilling operation

“…Participants were divided into two groups: a novice group (ten graduate students, one male and nine females, with less than three years of clinical practice experience) and a resident group (ten resident-level dentists, three males and seven females, with three to ten years of clinical practice experience). In previous studies, a combined method integrating objective and subjective analysis was proposed to evaluate the performance of the dental simulator [15]. In this paper, we adopt this combined method for subjective and objective evaluations of two dental drilling tasks ( Figure 4): caries removal operations and pulp chamber opening operations.…”

A review of computer-aided oral and maxillofacial surgery: planning, simulation and navigation

“…With the use of this training system, the operations of maxilla and mandible (such as cutting, drilling and milling) were simulated via a self-developed algorithm, and the vivid 3D stereo effect was realized. Wang et al (2012) presented a haptic-based dental simulator (iDental) with both force and torque feedback [23]. During the evaluation experiments, the system allowed the surgeons to simulate the periodontics operations such as the pocket probing examination, calculus detection and calculus removal.…”

A virtual reality simulator for training endodontics procedures using manual files

“…With respect to the utilised devices, the Phantom haptic device, with 6 DOF for tracking and 3 DOF for force feedback, was found to be the prevailing choice to control rotating instruments for coronary opening [2] [3], to simulate both the usage of the odontological mirror [4] and periodontical procedures [5] [6] . In the specific area of endodontics, only work on file deformation and tooth pulp behaviour analysis was found.…”