Using Kinect For a Touch-Free Interface In Surgery 53
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."
TSA (Score:1)
Whatever you do, please keep this technology away from TSA!
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We are encouraging the entire federal government to read an obscure memo entitled "Constitution of the United States of America"
Sterile (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.
Re:Sterile (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.
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True, but I think you'd want to design the user interface to take somewhat more subtle cues than the doctor jumping on the patient and dancing the funky chicken. Like, for example, he raises one hand a few inches over the surgical area. Tilting the hand pans the image around, clenched fist zooms in, outstretched fingers zoom out. Something that doesn't involve painting the walls with O-Negative.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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All the mechanics I've seen just cover their keyboards in plastic. Cheap, simple and reliable. Trying to replace 50 cents worth of plastic with hundreds of dollars worth of electronics would be an uphill battle.
Re:Sterile (Score:5, 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...
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Not without a social and cultural revolution.
I would put a link to Marshall Brain's "Manna" story here, but the stupid lame Slashdot Javascript somehow disables cut & paste in Chrome. Grr.
Essentially - if we have a technological revolution that allows robotic labour to do most human jobs, in our current model of capitalism, most people are screwed, because your only value to a capitalist system is the value of your labour (although your compensation for that labour is usually orthogonal to it's actual v
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You'd be an idiot if you just sacked them instead of finding other ways to utilize their skills and experience. These are not jobs at the same level of a burger flipper, they are highly trained people who hopefully have a diverse set of skills and talents. Technology is not meant to make people redundant, it is to free them up to be even more productive.
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The circulating nurses in my OR are excellent at being circulating nurses, not at being CT scan navigators. It is quite painful to watch a nurse "scroll down to that inflammatory process in the right lower quadrant". It is a task that would take me 1-2 seconds with a mouse, but takes seemingly an eternity for someone not accustomed to interpreting CT scans.
Trust me, moving that task to the surgeon would not come CLOSE to eliminating the job of the circulating nurse. The vast majority of their job has noth
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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.
yes, because foot pedals would be too obvious to use instead...
Why? (Score:1)
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I don't think it was ignored, it's just there are fewer applications for the Wii-mote in medicine.
Maybe when surgeons find a reason to break televisions in theatre, Wii will get another look.
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Because ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAhIqX6lSCs [youtube.com]
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The Wii was not ignored - it was a very adaptable controller. Just do a search for Wii remote hacks. However it is completely different technology from the Kinect. The Wii tracks the movements of a controller. The Kinect generates a realtime 3D map of its environment and tracks moving objects, not just a controller.
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Also the Kinect is a lot more advanced (Score:5, 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.
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The luddite in me wonders if you can use Kinect to create a battery-free wireless mouse by pointing the camera at the mousepad and using an old
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That's a pretty damn good idea, albeit a very expensive method to simply remove battery weight. Also, I'd be very surprised if the resolution was as good as today's optical mice.
I could see that being useful in a living room environment for use with an HTPC though.
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From my experience, a big part is not needing a wiimote. It also tracks movement extremely well. I'm a rather portly gentleman who tends to wear loose flappy clothes, and it has no trouble dropping a skeleton overlay over my limbs.
I can't see using it in something delicate like surgery, though. I do notice a definite bit of lag with the kinect that the wii doesn't get, but I digress. It's a much more complex piece of equipment, and far more worthy than I originally deemed it upon learning I wasn't going to
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Surgery != Viewing Images (Score:2)
Worst. Title. Ever.
Hands-free, eh? (Score:2)
Hands-free [gizmag.com], eh? I do not think that term means what you think it means.
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Inconceivable! (Anybody want some pork and beans?)
Modern medecine (Score:1)
Wife: what happened, a medical error?
Surgeon: not at all, just another MS bug. But a patch should be delivered soon..
Open source drivers also from the manufacturer (Score:5, 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 [slashdot.org], still pending, Slashdot article.
Shachar
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I think MS might not "officially" be thrilled the Kinect is being used for virtual sex, I'm sure they are quite happy that millions more units will be sold because of it.