IEEE Future Directions
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Augmented reality has been applied in a variety of niches, including some areas in health care. As technology progresses, both in rendering data and making them visible on a variety of surfaces and in processing of the data, more effective uses of AR are proposed.
At the University of Maryland, as presented in an article on Harvard Business Review, researchers believe that AR can enhance the doctors effectiveness and point out a number of reasons, including:
- the possibility of displaying images from the point of view of the doctor, rather than from the point of view of the imaging device used in the exam,
- the possibility of integrating several data resulting from different exams in a single image,
- possibility of placing the information in a place that is easily seen by the doctor without requiring her to shift the gaze from the patient to the data.
They are also pointing out the potential to decrease cost by getting rid of several screens today used to display the different data (normally each monitoring device has its own screen and on that screen, managed directly by the device, there is no space to display other data).
At the University of Alberta researchers have shown how to use AR to let the doctor look “inside” the patient’s body, using data gathered from medical exams (see clip).
In this case a projector displays the data/images directly on the body of the patient, exactly where they are relevant. It might seem easy but it is extremely complex.
The display system needs to recognise the body of the patient in 3D, it needs to adapt the image to be displayed to the different shapes the body takes as it changes its position. This is achieved through a motion tracking system that analyses the body image captured by cameras and uses markers on the body to pinpoint the positions among the different parts of the body. A software developed by the team morphs the image to fit the body.
The system demonstrates the possibility offered by AR. For the time being it will be used for educational purposes but in the future the researchers hope to see its application on real patients in real medical procedures.
