Tim Coles

Postdoctoral Fellow ICT

Contact

The Australian e-Health Research Centre
Level 5 - UQ Health Sciences Building 901/16
Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital
Herston Qld
4029 Australia

Tel: 61 7 3253 3642
Email

Themes

• Medical Simulation

Biography

I graduated from Bangor University in Computer science in 2006 and, from my Masters in Advanced Visualisation, Virtual Environments and Computer Animation in 2007. In my Master’s Thesis “A comparison of a needle puncture fidelity between commercially available haptic devices” I produced a comprehensive review of needle insertion simulations, evaluated commercial haptics devices for the use in needle insertion simulations and produced an application for the evaluation of hemispatial neglect in stroke patients.

Between 2008 and Feb 2011 I worked at Istituto Italian di Tecnologia (IIT) in a collaborative PhD position between IIT and Bangor University, Wales under the supervision of both Professor Nigel W John (Bangor) and Professor Darwin G Caldwell (IIT). The focus of my research was the use of augmented reality to produce immersive visio-haptic medical simulation training environments. During my PhD I produced an immersive femoral palpation and needle insertion training environment called PalpSim which underwent content and face validation at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. My PhD thesis “Investigating Augmented Reality Visio-Haptic Techniques for Medical Training” is freely available on the Eurographics website.

My speciality is in medical simulation incorporating both visual and haptic feedback and since March 2011 I have been a member of the colonoscopy simulation team.

Academic Qualifications

2011	PhD Real Time Medical Training Simulation (Computer Science) Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova and Bangor University, Wales
2007	MSc in Advanced Visualisation, Virtual Environments and Computer Animation: Pass with Distinction, University of Wales Bangor
2006	BSc Computer Science: First class honours, University of Wales, Bangor

Achievements & Awards

Poster	prize - T.R. Coles, G. Sofia, N.W. John, D.A. Gould and D.G Caldwell, “Modification of Commercial Force Feedback Hardware for Needle Insertion Simulation” Stud Health Technol Inform, 2011, pp 135-137.
Undergraduate	awards
2006	‘Best Graduating Student from a BCS accredited computing course’ at Bangor University.
2005	‘W. E. Williams’ prize for the best computer science student of the year at Bangor University.

Summary of Science & Technical Output

Top 10 Publications

Publication details
T.R. Coles. "Investigating Augmented Reality Visio-Haptic Techniques for Medical Training", PhD thesis, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy, 16-Feb-2011. Note: Freely available from the Eurographics digital Library http://diglib.eg.org/EG/DL/dissonline/doc/coles.pdf
T.R. Coles, D.A. Gould, N.W. John and D.G. Caldwell, “Integrating Haptics with Augmented Reality in a Femoral Palpation and Needle Insertion Training Simulation”, IEEE Transactions on Haptics, To appear.
T.R. Coles, D Meglan and N.W. John, “The Role of Haptics in Medical Training Simulators: A Survey of the State‐of‐the‐art”, IEEE Transactions on Haptics, vol. 4, no. 1, Jan – Mar 2011, pp 51-66.
T.R. Coles, G. Sofia, N.W. John, D.A. Gould and D.G Caldwell, “Modification of Commercial Force Feedback Hardware for Needle Insertion Simulation” Stud Health Technol Inform, 2011, pp 135-137. Awarded a best poster prize.
T.R. Coles, D.A. Gould, N.W. John and D.G. Caldwell, “Virtual Femoral Palpation Simulation for Interventional Radiology Training” EG UK Theory and Practice of Computer Graphics, 2010, Pp. 123-126.
T.R. Coles, N.W. John and D.G. Caldwell, “The Case for Augmented Reality when Training in a Virtual Medical Environment” Workshop of Medical Virtual Environments at IEEEVR2010.
T.R. Coles, N. W. John, “The Effectiveness of Commercial Haptic Devices for Use in Virtual Needle Insertion Training Simulations,” Advances in Computer-Human Interaction, 2010, Third International Conference on, 2010, pp. 148-153.
T.R. Coles, N.W. John, D.A. Gould and D.G. Caldwell, “Haptic Palpation for the Femoral Pulse in Virtual Interventional Radiology” Advances in Computer-Human Interaction, 2009, Second International Conference on, 2009, pp. 193-198.

Links

• Personal Website