Silicone Oil-Water Interaction and Emulsification Visual Simulation for Intraocular Silicone Oil Tamponade.

Vitrectomy combined with silicone oil tamponade is an effective treatment for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD). The high viscosity and surface tension of the silicone oil make it suitable for treating large retinal tears by pressing against the retina. However, silicone oil becomes emulsified over time as it remains in the eye, which can cause serious complications. Clear visual acquisitions of silicone oil-water interaction and silicone oil emulsification progress are difficult during and after the surgery. To help doctors and patients perceive the two-phase interaction and emulsification progress intuitively, we propose a physically based simulation method for intraocular silicone oil visualization. For the visualization of immiscible silicone oil-water interaction, we introduce a volume-incompressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) approach to improve simulation precision of multiphase flow coupling. A diffusion model based on volume fraction is proposed to visualize emulsification progress. Additionally, we combine our method with cohesion and surface-minimization driven surface tension model to describe the high surface tension of silicone oil. Experiments show that our scheme can obtain a precise pressure gradient near phase boundary and perform noticeable mixing effect that evolves over time. Our method has the advantage of higher accuracy than other visualization methods, and has the potential to help doctors make decisions and estimate surgical outcomes.