Towards a mixed reality environment for preoperative planning of cardiac surgery.
We present a novel approach to studying physical heart models by coupling them with virtual 3D representations in a mixed reality environment. The limitations of standalone physical models (non-interactive, static) are overcome by the corresponding virtual models, which in turn become more natural to interact with. The potential of this approach is exemplified by a setup which enables cardiac surgeons to interactively trace the mitral annulus, a part of the cardiac skeleton playing a vital role in mitral valve surgery. We present results of a pilot study and discuss ways of improving and extending the system. The described mixed reality environment could easily be adapted to other fields and thus has the potential to become a new tool for investigating 3D medical data.
Seitel
M
M
German Cancer Research Center, Div. Medical and Biological Informatics, Germany. m.seitel@dkfz.de
Maier-Hein
L
L
Rietdorf
U
U
Nikoloff
S
S
Seitel
A
A
Franz
A
A
Kenngott
H
H
Karck
M
M
De Simone
R
R
Wolf
I
I
Meinzer
H-P
HP
D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008944:Mitral Valve Insufficiency / Q000601:surgery*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011300:Preoperative Care; D014584:User-Computer Interface