There are a lot of companies
working on medical apps for VR headsets right now, but they’re mainly designed
to work with expensive haptic peripherals or to be sold to hospitals at a high
price. Scalpel VR wants to bring realistic surgical training to everyone. Scalpel
VR is developed by researchers at Imperial College London’s Department of
Surgery and Cancer. Instead of state of the art training equipment, the app
only requires you own an Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or Windows headset and their
respective motion controllers. These tools could be all you need to test your
hand at making accurate incisions.
Using various data sets, Scalpel
VR allows you to take scalpel in hand and attempt to make accurate incisions
into flesh. It’s not a simple case of one slice, but identifying the areas you
need to detach for operation. You won’t just be experimenting with humans but
also (virtual) dead animals. The app’s final release will include a range of
different surgeries complete with instructions allowing you to practice each
procedure carefully. Obviously in this day and age, you could probably find
detailed guides to carrying out these surgeries online, but widely available
software that allows anyone to realistically simulate carrying them out is
another matter.
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