1. A surgical training simulator system, comprising: a housing structure; an optical module affixed to the housing structure and including an optical camera positioned to capture images in light received from a workspace that includes a field-of-view (FOV) of the of the optical camera; a lighting system structured to illuminate said workspace; and a projector configured to form an image, of a display of the projector, in said workspace in light received from said display of the projector; and tangible, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code thereon, the computer-readable program code including program code for generating, with electronic circuitry of the surgical training simulator system and for each motion from a set of motions that have been tabulated for a surgical procedure performed with an instrument within the workspace, an event output representing an occurrence of re-alignment of the instrument when data, acquired with the electronic circuitry, indicate that a change in operational status of the instrument has crossed a predetermined operational threshold; and program code for creating a multi-level hierarchy of descriptors representing changes in the operational status of the instrument by determining identifiable portions of the motion based on combination of multiple event outputs.