The Virtual Environment Laboratory is dedicated to the research and development of the application of virtual environment and virtual reality in the area of mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering and biomedicine. For example, physicians and patients are looking towards minimally invasive surgical procedures for faster, and cost-effective treatment. To that end, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the University of Texas at Arlington Biomedical Engineering Program are teaming with the Southwestern Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery to create haptic virtual surgical simulators. These simulators are designed to train surgeons for laparoscopic procedures in a safe, measurable environment called Virtual Training in Laparoscopy. Another example is Image Based Diagnostic Systems for such use as more accurate and less painful breast biopsies.
The huge success of flight simulators has encouraged researchers to pursue simulators for surgical training, planning and rehearsal. The primary concern of a flight simulator is to provide visual simulation. While surgical simulators require rich and accurate portrayal of visual information, they also need to provide the sense of touch to the surgeon. Laparoscopic surgeries are increasingly preferred over open surgery due to the minimum damage they cause to the surrounding tissues, resulting in decreased post-operative pain and hospitalization time
Advanced Research Project ( ARP)
The Advanced Research Program were created by the Texas Legislature in 1987 as competitive, peer-reviewed grants programs to fund scientific and engineering research projects of faculty members at Texas higher education institutions. The programs are administered by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.The objective of our ARP proposal is to develop a voxel based haptic rendering scheme for soft tissues.
Medical Virtual Reality (MedVR):
This Project is used to make practice surgeons/inexperienced surgeons in getting a full expertise on Laparascopic surgeries. The Virtual Trainer shall be a software application (interfaced with haptic devices) for medical centers that facilitates surgeons to experiment on virtual patients suffering from inguinal hernia.The interfaces shall give a feel of a real patient being treated for inguinal hernia supported by haptic feedback forces and real time visualization.
Virtually guided Haptic Assisted Biopsy
Core needle biopsy is a non-invasive technique for confirming breast and prostate cancer. Several non-real time image based systems have been developed to guide the needle to the target. However,most of these methods are non-real time or, the imaging technique is two dimensional or ionizing. Our broad objective is to develop a biopsy system(ViHAB) using real time 3D US imaging and haptic guidance. ViHAB will help the radiologist identify suspicious tissue and provide real time guidance for core needle biopsy
Special Visual Effects for Surgical Simulation
Simulation of cauterization and irrigation forms an important part of a visual laproscopic trainer. Typically they are used to carry out to stop the intragasteric bleeding due to an accident cut by the surgeon. In this project, we present a method to simulate these special visual effects in an integrated fashion in real-time. We have simulate cauterization and irrigation using a particle-based system. A physics-based model is used to simulate accumulation and removal of fluids.
Ganeshram R. Iyer, John J. Mills, Venkat Devarajan, Sharon Barber, Saurabh Maitra, “Using a Context-Based Inference Approach to Capture Design Intent from Legacy CAD”, Computer-Aided Design and Applications, Vol. 3, Nos. 1-4, 2006
2006
Venkat Devarajan PhD, Yunhe Shen PhD, Xiuzhong Wang PhD, Mark J. Watson MD, Robert Eberhart PhD, Dan Jones MD and Leo Villegas MD “A Novel Laparoscopic Mesh Placement Part Task Trainer”, Int. J. Medical Robotics & Computer Assisted Surgery, Volume 2, Issue 4, December 2006
2005
Xiuzhong Wang and Venkat Devarajan, “1D and 2D structured mass-spring models with preload”, Visual Computer, International Journal of Computer Graphics, Vol. 21, Number 7, August 2005
Simulation of CO2 Insufflation of Abdominal Cavity for Laparoscopic Surgery, Sarika Phatak, Presentation in "Medicine Meets Virtual Reality" Conference (January 23-27, 2002), New Port Beach, California
Accomplishments
1) Rockwell International Fellow at UTA 1976-1979 2) Director's Award at LTV (now Lockheed Martin Vought Systems) 1989 3) College of Engineering, Research Excellence Award – May 2002 4) Robert Q. Lee Award for Teaching Excellence (Lockheed Martin Teaching Excellence) – May, 2003 5) Nominated from the College of Engineering for the State-wide Piper Professor Award – 2006 and 2007
Important Disclaimer: The responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained on these pages lies with the authors and user providing such information.
Research Center Profile
817-272-3485 
416, Yates Street, Arlington, TX 76010
Nedderman Hall, Room No: 142
