9/25, 9:00 - 11:30 pm Dr. Wolfgang Mueller-Wittig Director of the Centre for Advanced Media Technology (CAMTech) Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (Fraunhofer-IGD) / Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore Two paradigm shifts made this interesting area possible: in medicine there was a transition from open surgery to minimally invasive surgery where surgical interventions are done through small incisions in the body in which a miniature camera and surgical tools are manoeuvred - these complicated techniques require a specific training; and in computer graphics, 2-D interaction was replaced by 3-D interaction using Virtual Reality techniques. These advances opened up new possibilities in medicine addressing anatomical education, surgical training, preoperative planning, and intraoperative support. Especially in surgical training, highly interactive medical simulators for minimally invasive surgery permits trainees to enhance their learning curve on virtual anatomy before facing a real patient. A highly realistic surgical environment including anatomical structures and surgical instruments is required. Moreover, a "natural" interaction considering the various human senses is playing an important role. This tutorial is an introduction to the field of using new enabling technologies in medicine focusing on surgical training. It addresses individuals new to the field or those interested in innovative technologies. Moreover, this tutorial will help the surgeon move into the world of virtual surgery. A survey of current use of new technologies in medicine is provided. Possibilities and research challenges in using state-of-the-art medical simulators will be highlighted. none. Dr. Wolfgang Mueller-Wittig is the Director of the Centre for Advanced Media Technology (CAMTech), a joint venture of Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (Fraunhofer-IGD), Darmstadt (Germany), and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is also involved in the teaching activities at the School of Computer Engineering, NTU. Prior to CAMTech, he worked as scientist in the "Visualization & Virtual Reality" Department at Fraunhofer-IGD, and finally as the head of the "Visualization Group". He is responsible for the development of various medical applications using new visualization, VR and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies focusing on surgical training, preoperative planning and intraoperative support. He was mainly involved in the realization of the VR based medical training simulator for knee arthroscopy presented for the first time in 1993. Dr. Mueller-Wittig has a number of publications in the area of computer graphics, Virtual Reality, and computer assisted surgery.