Follou Avatar Haptics

Haptic Avatar is a collection of interface devices and components for minimally invasive surgical training, such as laparoscopy, arthroscopy and thoracoscopy. It contains a “Port” haptic device that has four degrees of freedom, all with force feedback, and a form factor that enables multiple and adjustable portal placement suitable for both individual and team training. It also contains different “Tools”, that represent the surgical instruments. Some tools have force feedback.

This plugin provides an integration of Follou AB’s devices inside SOFA. Meaning C++ classes to interface and communicate with the devices from SOFA, as well as SOFA representation of the articulated systems of the different tools and force feedback computation in all degrees of freedom, including the handle grip force.

More information on the devices can be found at: www.follou-haptics.com

Features

• A low level API in c++ is available to communicate with multiple different devices in parallel.
• The SOFAHapticAvatar plugin implements its own haptic loop in parallel to the SOFA simulation loop.
• Different SOFA components are available in the plugin to represent each type of device: grasper, camera, portals position manager and Ibox controller (see full documentation).
• Examples using SofaPython3 or in XML are available in the plugin to simulate a single or dual grasper against rigid or deformable bodies (~8 demo scenes for single device and 6 scenes for dual devices).

Additional informations