SimTecT Event

CSIRO Collaborations

SimTecT - May, 2004

SimTecT Event Report

Haptic Audio-Visual - Enabled Interaction Across the Pacific at Internet2 Member Meeting in Austin, Texas in the Fall 2004

Demo for FCC Commissioner in May 2005

Stereo Video Transmission from Stanford to Sydney

Adding Touch to Web-based Surgical Training: A SimTecT – Stanford University Live Demonstration

Dr. Patrick Cregan, Director of Surgery at Wentworth Area Health Service in Penrith, Australia, operated the Haptic Workbench, an innovative technology that offers a media rich learning environment for real-time collaboration. In this picture, Dr. Cregan is participating in the interactive demonstration from the Convention Centre in Canberra, Australia.

Seated at another Haptic Workbench workstation at Stanford, Dr. Sherry Wren, Chief of General Surgery, Palo Alto Veteran’s Administration Hospital, and Assoc. Professor from Stanford University School of Medicine, is leading the interactive session.
The two surgeons--Dr. Cregan posing as a resident--performed a simulation of a laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedure on a stereo image of the upper abdominal region, simultaneously grasping relevant anatomical structures while interacting about the intricate dissection and procedure.

An added dimension of this technology is the ability to provide haptic feedback-allowing each user to feel the resistance of virtual tissues, as well as the manipulations of another user. This unique system, the Haptic Workbench, was developed by scientists at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, CSIRO.

Participants watched the 3D demonstration and evaluated the value and role of simulation in teaching.

Prior to the simulation, Dr. Sakti Srivastava, Adjunct Faculty, Department of Surgery (Division of Anatomy) led the group remotely, from Stanford, in an anatomy lesson. He selected a series of high-resolution stereo images from Stanford's Bassett collection. The Bassett collection was created by David Bassett who conducted the painstaking dissections over a period of nearly fourteen years in the 1950’s and 1960’s. William Gruber, the inventor of the 3D View-Master meticulously photographed these dissections.