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Using Kinect For a Touch-Free Interface In Surgery

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-all-in-the-wrist dept.

cylonlover writes "While Microsoft probably isn't thrilled open source drivers for its Kinect have led to it being used for 3D virtual sex games, a new application for the device developed by members of the Virtopsy research project at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland is likely to be more welcome. The team has developed a functional prototype using Kinect that provides users with a hands-free way to review radiological images."

7 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Sterile by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The summary fails to connect the viewing of radiographs to surgery. The point of this is to allow interaction with a computer without having to touch anything, in order to select, view, zoom, pan, etc radiographs. Hands-free is fantastic in this case, as it maintains a sterile environment, and keeps blood from being smeared all over physical computer controls. Obviously there would be many uses for this in surgery besides just viewing radiographs, but that is a good place to start.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Sterile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This isn't hands-free. Hands-free would mean that you can use the interface while doing something else with your hands. It is touch-free.

    2. Re:Sterile by DigiShaman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Auto mechanics could find good use out of this technology as well. No need to drop the tools and/or get the console all greasy. I'm sure it would work great for mechanics working in aviation as well. No need to pick up that book of schematics anymore.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    3. Re:Sterile by arivanov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Kind'a

      The point is to give a pink slip to the (usually senior) qualified nurse or junior radiographer who are sitting at the manual controls now and doing exactly the same function on surgeon request.

      C'est la vie. Such are the inevitable results of technological progress...

      --
      Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
      http://www.sigsegv.cx/
    4. Re:Sterile by Alicat1194 · · Score: 2

      Or, for a less cynical viewpoint, to allow said nurse or radiographer to be redeployed to somewhere else in the hospital where they can be of more use (and considering the current shortage of medical personnel, that can't be a bad thing).

      --
      You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
  2. Also the Kinect is a lot more advanced by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Informative

    Which is one of the reason there's so much excitement. The Wiimote has a somewhat imprecise accelerometer that is uses to measure gross movements, and a reasonably high resolution IR camera in the front that it uses to look for two dots (that its bar generates) to do precise aiming. Ok, cool, and there are many hacks out there for it. However Kinect takes it all a step further. It uses the same kind of IR camera (hell might be the same camera in both units) but instead of looking for a couple dots, it projects a whole field of them. That allows it to be stationary, and to measure things in 3D that it sees. This is then combine with other information from a visible light camera.

    So as the parent said, for this application the interest is in the "hands off no sterilization" thing but in general it is because Kinect is more advanced. What you can do with it is cooler in general, things like realtime 3D capture (though at a rather low resolution) and so on. That is going to lead to more interest.

    You have to realize that what the Wiimote does has kinda been done before. Gyration, among others, have made motion sensing controllers that you can use. Gyration makes mice. Their Pro Air mouse is a wireless optical mouse, when on a desk, and then becomes a motion sensing mouse when lifted up. You just tilt it around to control things (it has a trigger so you can tell it when you want it to move the pointer, and when you are just moving around). Thus while there is some interest in the Wiimote, in part because it is much cheaper than devices like that, it is really nothing new.

    The Kinect is the first device, at least the first consumer one, that can do a good job of tracking what it happening completely visually and passively. You don't have to hold anything or have anything on you (like a reflective strip). It just watches what you do and can get useful 3D data from that, which can then be processed by programs. That's pretty amazing.

  3. Open source drivers also from the manufacturer by Sun · · Score: 4, Informative

    I should just point out that PrimeSense, the hardware manufacturer behind the Kinect, also has open source drivers, as well (closed source, free of charge) libraries for skeleton detection and other stuff. Info in this, still pending, Slashdot article.

    Shachar