Featured Research: Virtual Operating Software
NCCA develops Virtual Operating Software to train surgeons.
A team of academics in the Media School's NCCA are developing sophisticated animated software that could revolutionise the training of surgeons.
Professor Jian Zhang and his colleagues are effectively simulating a medical operation, with animated soft tissue, organs and touch sensitive tools that accurately portray the look and feel of surgery.
The project is being developed in close collaboration with Bournemouth and Poole Hospitals. Three consultants provide regular feedback and medical guidance, as well as testing the software and providing the NCCA with hardware tools. They also arrange for Professor Zhang and his colleague to watch real operations.
Profssor Zhung said: "Medical visualisation and simulation has a great potential on many fronts: quality of life, cost saving and better, more efficient training for junior doctors. In terms of core technology, computer animation shares a lot of common ground with medical visualisation. This places us in an advantageous position to purpose this research."
A wide range of technologies have been applied to allow this phenomenal project to take shape. Mainly graphics libraries, object oriented programme languages, animation software packages and the software libraries that come with the haptic devices.
The complex scientific research and the challenge of implementing a user-friendly software programme makes Virtual Operating Software a fascinating project to work on. But there's another motivation behind it. "The expense of the modern health care services makes me feel we all have an obligation to help improve the quality and reduce the costs," said Professor Zhung.
The software is currently in the early stages of development, but it clearly has a lot of potential for the future. Professor Zhung hopes the work will inspire other researchers, medical practitioners and engineers to invent and produce better medical products using modern computer visualisation technology.
He added: "I hope our work evolves into market products, benefiting the front line medics. They can be used to train doctors, help plan surgical procedures and dry-run operations to identify possible complications."
The full project team is made up of Dr Junjun Pan, Dr Xiaosong Yang, Dr Jian Chang, Dr Hongchuan Yu and Wenxi Li.
