Novel, Robust, and Efficient Guidewire Modeling for PCI Surgery Simulator Based on Heterogeneous and Integrated Chain-Mails

Despite the long R&D history of interactive minimally-invasive surgery and therapy simulations, the guide wire/catheter behavior modeling remains challenging in Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) surgery simulators. This is primarily due to the heterogeneous heart physiological structures and complex intravascular inter-dynamic procedures. To ameliorate, this paper advocates a novel, robust, and efficient guide wire/catheter modeling method based on heterogeneous and integrated chain-mails, that can afford medical practitioners and trainees the unique opportunity to experience the entire guide wire-dominant PCI procedures in virtual environments as our model aims to mimic what occurs in clinical settings. Our approach´s originality is primarily founded upon this new method´s unconditional stability, real time performance, flexibility, and high-fidelity realism for guide wire/catheter simulation. Considering the front end of the guide wire has different stiffness with its conjunctive slender body and the guide wire length is adaptive to the surrounding environment, we propose to model the spatially-varying six-degree of freedom behaviors by solely resorting to the generalized 3D chain-mails. Meanwhile, to effectively accommodate the motion constraints caused by the beating vessels and flowing blood, we integrate heterogeneous volumetric chain mails to streamline guide wire modeling and its interaction with surrounding substances. By dynamically coupling guide wire chain-mails with the surrounding media via virtual links, we are capable of efficiently simulating the collision-involved interdynamic behaviors of the guide wire. Finally, we showcase a PCI prototype simulator equipped with hap tic feedback for mimicing the guide wire intervention therapy, including pushing, pulling, and twisting operations, where the built-in high-fidelity, real-time efficiency, and stableness show great promise for its practical applications in clinical training and surgery rehearsal fields.