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3D surgical video across the Pacific

This page reports on work carried out from 2005-2006.

In March 2006, Sydney surgeons enjoyed a two hour window into the operating room at Stanford University Hospital from the comfort of the Director's Meeting Room at our Marsfield site. They discussed the operation beforehand with the surgeon, went with him into the Operating Room to be briefed on the placement of keyhole surgical instruments then followed him in glorious 3D into the patient as he gave running commentary on the steps of the surgery. We are one of few research groups to have achieved high-quality real-time 3D video of surgery over the internet in a practical teaching scenario, and we showed that this type of presentation is valuable right across the range of surgical experience.

The 3D display was the centrepiece of the event. The larger-than-life display showed the abdominal organs in stunning clarity as the surgeon inspected them for disease. At one point he needed to remove the appendix, and after explaining that there were several different techniques for doing this he asked the audience which technique they would like to see applied! The display technology used two powerful data projectors projecting through polarised glass filters onto a specially surfaced screen (to preserve polarisation of the reflected light). The audience wore simple plastic polarised glasses.

This was a team effort. Extensive background work between the Canberra team and our colleagues at Stanford got the basic software and logistics in place. The surgeons (Pat Cregan in Sydney, LeRoy Heinrichs and Camran Nezhat in Stanford) developed the teaching material and organised hospital, patient and audience.  Our Sydney colleagues played a major role in setting up and fine-tuning the system at Marsfield, and in liaising with AARNet to switch to serious bandwidth across the Pacific. Dr Nezhat and his surgical team performed the operation.