Section: New Results

Virtual Cutting

The simulation of cutting is a central interest in the team. We especially work on the simulation of surgical cuts 14 , tearing and other separations of materials induced by surgical tools. On the one hand, we investigated the theoretical aspect: using the standard finite element method (FEM) combined with a re-meshing approach, we replace locally the current structure of the mesh in order to allow for a separation. On the other hand, we detected a separation in the motion of an object provided by a monocular video stream. With that detection, we can provide an augmented reality during the cutting and tearing of a deformable object.

Figure 14. Our cutting algorithm in SOFA

The theoretical aspect of our work has been published in an article both at the conference Computer Graphics International CGI [24] and in the journal "The visual computer" [20] . The application in augmented reality 15 has been published at two conferences: "Augmented Reality during Cutting and Tearing of Deformable Objects", International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) [30] .

Figure 15. Augmented reality on a liver involving large deformation and cutting, i.e. topological changes

To read more about our projects and results, please visit our website: http://mimesis.inria.fr .