Patent ID: 7206626

Claim:
A haptic surgical system comprising: a computer-aided surgery system; a surgical tool for performing computer-aided surgical operations on a patient; a display device for displaying a haptic object and a computer reconstructed diagnostic image of an internal anatomy of the patient, said haptic object being defined with respect to said patient's anatomy by superimposing the diagnostic image and the haptic object; a haptic device coupled to the computer-aided surgery system and the surgical tool, the haptic device communicating one or more haptic cues to a user guiding the surgical tool based at least in part on at least one extension from said haptic object, created based at least in part on position of the surgical tool or the haptic device or proximity of the surgical tool or the haptic device to the haptic object, said at least one extension being displayed on the display device to depict the extension's relationship to said patient's anatomy.