A robotic surgical system, comprising: a first robotic arm assembly including a linkage supporting a first surgical tool for insertion into a patient for use in performing a surgical procedure at an internal surgical site; a second robotic arm assembly including a linkage supporting a camera for insertion into the patient for capturing images of the internal surgical site during the surgical procedure; a kinematic component coupled to the first and second robotic arm assemblies (42,44) so as to obtain kinematic position information associated with the linkages of the first and second robotic arm assemblies (42,44); a surgeon console comprising a display (32,84) for displaying to a surgeon images captured by the camera during the surgical procedure and an input for receiving control inputs from the surgeon that control the movement of the first robotic arm assembly and the first surgical tool to perform the surgical procedure; characterized in that the robotic surgical system comprises: a modeling component coupling the display (32,84) with the kinematic component so as to display a synthetic representation of the robotic arm assemblies (42,44) that includes a graphical three-dimensional model of the linkages of the first and second arm assemblies (42,44) based upon: linkage structure data regarding the linkages of the first and second arm assemblies (42,44), and the kinematic position information associated with the linkages of the first and second robotic arm assemblies (42,44). a first robotic arm assembly including a linkage supporting a first surgical tool for insertion into a patient for use in performing a surgical procedure at an internal surgical site; a second robotic arm assembly including a linkage supporting a camera for insertion into the patient for capturing images of the internal surgical site during the surgical procedure; a kinematic component coupled to the first and second robotic arm assemblies (42,44) so as to obtain kinematic position information associated with the linkages of the first and second robotic arm assemblies (42,44); a surgeon console comprising a display (32,84) for displaying to a surgeon images captured by the camera during the surgical procedure and an input for receiving control inputs from the surgeon that control the movement of the first robotic arm assembly and the first surgical tool to perform the surgical procedure; characterized in that the robotic surgical system comprises: a modeling component coupling the display (32,84) with the kinematic component so as to display a synthetic representation of the robotic arm assemblies (42,44) that includes a graphical three-dimensional model of the linkages of the first and second arm assemblies (42,44) based upon: linkage structure data regarding the linkages of the first and second arm assemblies (42,44), and the kinematic position information associated with the linkages of the first and second robotic arm assemblies (42,44). a modeling component coupling the display (32,84) with the kinematic component so as to display a synthetic representation of the robotic arm assemblies (42,44) that includes a graphical three-dimensional model of the linkages of the first and second arm assemblies (42,44) based upon: linkage structure data regarding the linkages of the first and second arm assemblies (42,44), and the kinematic position information associated with the linkages of the first and second robotic arm assemblies (42,44). linkage structure data regarding the linkages of the first and second arm assemblies (42,44), and the kinematic position information associated with the linkages of the first and second robotic arm assemblies (42,44).