In this paper, we describe a new method for surgery simulation including a
volumetric model built from medical images and an elastic modeling of the d
eformations. The physical model is based on elasticity theory which suitabl
y links the shape of deformable bodies and the forces associated with the d
eformation. A real-time computation of the deformation is possible thanks t
o a preprocessing of elementary deformations derived from a finite element
method. This method has been implemented in a system including a force feed
back device and a collision detection algorithm. The simulator works in rea
l-time with a high resolution liver model.