DIGITAL SURGERY Present day surgical training involves extensive use of cadavers and animals. Only a few trainees can practice at a time and they can hardly encounter rare medical conditions during the course of their study. Besides, objective quantitative assessment of their skills is difficult. To circumvent these problems and to provide surgeons with almost inexhaustible training materials, there is significant interest in “digital surgery” or the use of computer generated models to help train surgeons; much like fight simulations are used today to successfully train aviation pilots. Such a simulator would allow the trainee to interact with virtual 3D graphical models of human organs while manipulating them using a force feedback device such as a Phantom.  Better trained residents would translate to better prepared surgeons in the operating room, leading to fewer errors and morbidity. PROJECTS Real time surgery simulation using CUDA Nonlinear modeling of soft tissue response in real time using PAFF Physics-based modeling of electrosurgical procedures A Point Associated Finite Field (PAFF) method for real time physcis-based surgery simulation Image-based rendering to improve visual realism Simulaiton of surgical cutting in real time based on physical experiments A hybrid modeling scheme for tissue simulation in virtual reality based medical trainers VBLaSTTM: A Virtual Basic Laparoscopic Surgical Training Toolbox Bariatric surgery simulation Multimodal simulation of Laparoscopic Heller myotomy A realistic harware interface to digital surgery  SPONSORS      (1) NIH/NIBIB R21 EB003547:  Realistic Techniques for Virtual Surgery (2004-2007)      (2) NIH/NIBIB R01 EB005807: Physically Realistic Virtual Surgery (2006-2010) INVETIGATORS      Suvranu De      Daniel B. Jones (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston)      T. Paul Singh (Albany Medical College)