A cataract tele-surgery training application in a hapto-visual collaborative environment running over the CANARIE photonic network

We discuss our efforts in developing a hapto-visual application that medical students can use to gain valuable experience in performing eye cataract surgery on a human. Our application supports three scenarios: an instructor and a trainee in geographically distant locations interacting in real-time having the instructor tele-mentor the trainee using haptic devices at both ends; a trainee learning the surgical procedure by means of perceptual cues (e.g. projective lighting); and finally, a trainee performing the surgery without any guidance. Collaboration and remote interaction is done over the CANARIE CA*net4 photonic network. Organizationally, project development responsibilities are split into four functional components: the GUI, the graphic rendering, the haptic rendering (which includes collision detection and collision response by means of a physics engine), and networking. In this paper, we discuss our work on the four components, comment on the challenges we are facing and expect to face, and also discuss remaining work.