Surgical Simulator Systems and Methods

A surgical simulator comprising:

• a simulated microscope comprising a single housing having mounted therein a first display, eyepieces and a camera, the camera having a first orientation and the eyepieces having a second orientation, wherein the first orientation and second orientation are dissimilar, and wherein the camera has a field of view of an operational area of the simulator;
• a foot pedal unit;
• a first haptic arm representative of an actual surgical tool;
• a first haptic mechanism in mechanical communication with the first haptic arm;
• a haptic control unit configured to signal to the first haptic mechanism a level of haptic force feedback;
• a first computer in electronic communication with the haptic control unit and the foot pedal unit, the first computer comprising a software module having a physics-based model of an eye and configured to calculate the haptic force feedback to be provided by the first haptic arm and first haptic mechanism;
• a visual image generator configured to represent, on the first display, the portion of the human body based on one or more properties of the physics-based model;
• and
• wherein the simulator is configured to show on the first display, at the same time and while said simulator is simulating a surgery, a three-dimensional simulated image of the eye, and a three-dimensional image showing a first simulated surgical tool corresponding to the actual surgical tool.