Virtual surgery is based on interface technology between the surgeon and the surgical simulation.
The system is capable of manipulating, in its three-dimensional image, the body of a patient and of simulating, between places which are very far apart, incisions in organs and their enlargement. On the basis of four-dimensional imaging it is possible to simulate operations experimentally, using the specific anatomical features of a patient. There is no limit to the system's usefulness in medical training. As part of a joint project on virtual surgery between the Tokyo universities of Waseda and Jikei and the University of Bonn the first link-up was made on 3rd December 1998 via a single ISDN line. The virtual telesurgical system had been developed by the Institute of High Dimensional Imaging at Jikei University over the past three years.