Haptic-assisted guidance system for navigating volumetric data sets

In this paper, a new approach for navigation assistance through sets of volumetric data is presented. This innovative method uses force feedback in two dimensions to guide the user to a region of interest. The haptic feedback is calculated under two methods and we explain the implementation of both approaches. The output is displayed by the proactive desk, a two dimensional force feedback device developed at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute. This new approach is targeted to scientists who work with sets of volumetric data and who wish to find information using visual scanning enhanced with haptics. Our system is designed for magnetic resonance images (MRI) overlaid with functional MRI.