A framework for web browser-based medical simulation using WebGL.

This paper presents a web browser-based software framework that provides accessibility, portability, and platform independence for medical simulation. Typical medical simulation systems are restricted to the underlying platform and device, which limits widespread use. Our framework allows realistic and efficient medical simulation using only the web browser for anytime anywhere access using a variety of platforms ranging from desktop PCs to tablets. The framework consists of visualization, simulation, and hardware integration modules that are fundamental components for multimodal interactive simulation. Benchmark tests are performed to validate the rendering and computing performance of our framework with latest web browsers including Chrome and Firefox. The results are quite promising opening up the possibility of developing web-based medical simulation technology.