A study on a development of a virtual simulator for dental education using the 3-D haptic modeling system

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This study tried to apply the haptic modeling system to a virtual simulator for dental education.In the dental clinical field, the sense of touch is considered most important for the mastery of various treatment techniques ; all dental school students are practiced in dentistry skills, such as tooth preparation, cavity filling, taking impressions, occlusal adjustments. Especially in prosthetic dentistry education, the fabrication of prostheses is regarded as a fundamental technique, and requires considerable class time for practical training.In virtual reality technologies, accommodating the sense of touch has been behind the practical use, and compares with the other senses such as vision and hearing. We focused on the haptic modeling system, the fundamental technology of which has been developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Lab. The haptic interface has a good quality of human-computer interaction by accommodating our sense of touch, so its use has spread not only in the field of the industrial design but also in the medical.First, we tried to simulate a process of waxing up utilizing a virtual reality system. The FreeForm modeling system enables easier control of the functional shape of the occlusal surface than former modification methods of handling control points of various free-form surfaces with the 2D mouse. Additionally, the haptic interfaces were extremely useful for resolving visual ambiguities ; the sense of touch leading to greater accuracy. Next, we tried to apply this system to the modification of an individual craniofacial bone model for surgical simulation. As a result, a haptic modeling system provided a significant benefit for removing metal artifacts, and reduced the amount of time required for modeling and modification.We affirmed that the use of this haptic modeling system provides significant benefit for dental education.