Summary
Objectives: We present a dental training system with a haptic interface that allows dental students
or experts to practice dental procedures in a virtual environment. The simulator is
able to monitor and classify the performance of an operator into novice or expert categories. The intelligent training module allows a student to simultaneously and
proactively follow the correct dental procedures demonstrated by an intelligent tutor.
Methods: The virtual reality (VR) simulator simulates the tooth preparation procedure both graphically and haptically, using a video display and haptic device.
We evaluated the performance of users using hidden Markov models (HMMs) incorporating
various data collected by the simulator. We implemented an intelligent training module
which is able to record and replay the procedure that was performed by an expert and
allows students to follow the correct steps and apply force proactively by themselves
while reproducing the procedure.
Results: We find that the level of graphics and haptics fidelity is acceptable as evaluated
by dentists. The accuracy of the objective performance assessment using HMMs is encouraging
with 100 percent accuracy.
Conclusions: The simulator can simulate realistic tooth surface exploration and cutting. The accuracy
of automatic performance assessment system using HMMs is also acceptable on relatively
small data sets. The intelligent training allows skill transfer in a proactive manner
which is an advantage over the passive method in a traditional training. We will soon
conduct experiments with more participants and implement a variety of training strategies.
Keywords
Virtual reality - haptic interface - dental skills training - dental performance assessment
- hidden Markov model - intelligent training system
