This research paper presents a surface-based virtual dental sculpting simulator based on mixed auditory, visual, and tactile realities. The simulator can be used to perform different dental procedures (i.e., grinding, drilling, or surface scrubbing), and gain experience of using various virtual dental tools of different shapes. The surface-based dental model, which is extracted from a commercial 3D dental laser scanner, is used for simulating sculpting processes at less memory cost. Large amount of triangular mesh data is contained in scanned models; therefore, a model reduction algorithm is proposed for large triangular mesh data. For the computation of repulsive force feedback, a spring-damper force model with a force filter is used. Vertex deformation method is implemented along with an enhanced bi-tri subdivision method of triangles to perform precision sculpting simulation. In order to make the mesh regular, a number of mesh refinement algorithms are performed. Finally, considering the fidelity, stability, computer efficiency, and update rate of the haptic display, it can be concluded that these mixed realities based virtual system can generate stable simulation of material removal from a human tooth model with realistic auditory, visual, and force sensations.
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