The paper "Haptic Palpation for Medical Simulation in Virtual Environments" by Web3D Member Sebastian Ullrich and Torsten Kuhlen received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 2012 in Orange County, CA. The paper can be found at http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TVCG.2012.46. It describes a novel approach for haptic palpation interaction and presents the results of an extensive user study with medical experts.

The first author of the paper, Sebastian Ullrich, is a member of the Medical Working group at Web3D, finished his PhD at RWTH Aachen University in 2011 and works now for SenseGraphics AB, which is a Web3D Member company.

For future work the goal is to extend the specification of X3D through the Medical Working group. More specifically, the standard should provide standards for such interaction metaphors as building blocks for medical simulators. Furthermore, standard specifications for soft body physics and haptic rendering will be proposed and should for example facilitate the development of novel algorithms, ease the exchange between research groups and strengthen the use in medical industry.