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Remote 3D Medical Consultation

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Virtual Realities

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Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) video-based telemedical consultation has been explored widely in the past 15–20 years. Two issues that seem to arise in most relevant case studies are the difficulty associated with obtaining the desired 2D camera views, and poor depth perception. To address these problems we are exploring the use of a small array of cameras to synthesize a spatially continuous range of dynamic three-dimensional (3D) views of a remote environment and events. The 3D views can be sent across wired or wireless networks to remote viewers with fixed displays or mobile devices such as a personal digital assistant (PDA). The viewpoints could be specified manually or automatically via user head or PDA tracking, giving the remote viewer virtual head- or hand-slaved (PDA-based) remote cameras for mono or stereo viewing. We call this idea remote 3D medical consultation (3DMC). In this article we motivate and explain the vision for 3D medical consultation; we describe the relevant computer vision/graphics, display, and networking research; we present a proof-of-concept prototype system; and we present some early experimental results supporting the general hypothesis that 3D remote medical consultation could offer benefits over conventional 2D televideo.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Autostereoscopic displays provide one more viewers with a fixed number of stereo views (for example eight) of a 3D scene, without the use of special user-worn glasses. See http://www.newsight.com.

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Acknowledgements

At UNC-Chapel Hill we thank Jim Mahaney and John Thomas for their technical support; and former Graduate Research Assistant Max Smolens for his early contributions to the effort. We thank the paramedics who participated in the evaluation. This effort is primarily supported by National Library of Medicine contract N01-LM-3-3514: “3D Telepresence for Medical Consultation: Extending Medical Expertise Throughout, Between and Beyond Hospitals,” and in part by NSF grant EIA-0303590: “Ubiquitous Pixels: Transforming Collaboration & Teaching with Pervasive Wall Displays.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Computer Science, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Campus Box 3175, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27599-3175, USA

    Greg Welch, Henry Fuchs, Ketan Mayer-Patel, Andrei State, Herman Towles, Adrian Ilie & Srinivas Krishnan

  2. School of Information and Library Studies, University College Dublin, Belfeild, Dublin 4, Ireland

    Diane H. Sonnenwald

  3. The Department of Surgery, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Campus Box 7228, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27599-7228, USA

    Bruce Cairns M.D.

  4. The Department of Computer Science, The University of Kentucky, 232 Hardymon Building, Lexington, Kentucky, 40506-0195, USA

    Ruigang Yang

  5. The Swedish School of Library and Information Science, Göteborg University and the University College of Borås, 50190, Borås, Sweden

    Hanna M. Söderholm

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  1. Greg Welch
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Correspondence to Greg Welch .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fak. Informatik, Professur für Graphische, TU Chemnitz, Straße der Nationen 62, Chemnitz, 09107, Germany

    Guido Brunnett

  2. ZIRST, INRIA Rhône-Alpes, avenue de l'Europe 655, St.Ismier, 38334, France

    Sabine Coquillart

  3. Dept. Computer Science, University of North Carolina, Sitterson Hall, Chapel Hill, 27599-3175, North Carolina, USA

    Greg Welch

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Welch, G. et al. (2011). Remote 3D Medical Consultation. In: Brunnett, G., Coquillart, S., Welch, G. (eds) Virtual Realities. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-99178-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-99178-7_8

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