Sebastian Ullrich - Heart Surgery Simulation with Blender and H3D

Medical simulators allow a risk-free training or rehearsal of surgical procedures for medical students and experienced surgeons. These simulators often utilize virtual reality hardware, such as special haptic devices to provide feedback and 3D input, as well as stereoscopic rendering on various display systems. Obviously, the simulation and rendering has to rely on high quality 3D models. In this presentation we want to demonstrate how Blender can be used as a powerful tool in the development of medical simulators. In a case study, we provide insight into the development of a human heart surgery simulator and how Blender has been utilized in this process. The workflow from medical imaging CT and MRI datasets, the modeling steps in Blender, the export and the integration into the simulator will be described.

About Sebastian Ullrich

Founded in 2004 in Stockholm, SenseGraphics represents outstanding experience in medical virtual reality simulation based on its open source platform H3D API. Photo realistic anatomical 3D models created in Blender, impressive Visual Effects and an immersive Haptic Feedback take medical simulation to the next level. Successful products, research projects and implementations speak for themselves.

The presenter of this talk is a senior software engineer and expert in medical simulation at SenseGraphics. He received his M.Sc. (2005) and Ph.D. (2011) degrees in computer science from RWTH Aachen University. From 2007 to 2008 he worked as a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan. His research interests are primarily virtual reality, medical simulation with a special focus on soft-body physics simulation and haptic rendering. Since 2008 he is a member of the Web3D consortium and part of the Medical working group.