Patent ID: 7850456

Claim:
A computer system comprising a virtual organ for use in simulated medical procedures, the computer system comprising: a processor to perform a simulated medical procedure using the virtual organ, the virtual organ being a computer-implemented simulation, a user interaction device for user interaction with the virtual organ during the simulated medical procedure; and a user interface for presenting results of the simulated medical procedure, wherein the virtual organ comprises: a structure of elastic strip elements that simulate connecting tissues to be removed in the medical procedure, each strip element being a linear segment defined by a diameter function along the length of the strip element and two connection points wherein the diameter function defines a volume parameter around the linear segment at each point of the segment and when force is applied to a particular one of the elastic strip elements at a coagulation point by the user interaction, the diameter of the particular strip element at the coagulation point is reduced to zero so as to remove the particular strip element from the structure.