New 3D Display Technology - In the O.R.

Thu 6 Sep 2007

New 3D Display Technology

Posted by Steven F. Palter, MD under Technology, Endoscopic Surgery, Visualization, Future, camera, Medical Devices, Device Company, future vision, surgery, HDTV

this sure beats the old system!

Better for Creature Features than the OR

Phillips just demo’d an intriguing display at the Berlin consumer-electronics show. It is an amalgam of 9 x 42-inch displays on a grid creating a 132 inch display that reportedly can display 3D images without the need for glasses.

Why this is so important: 3D display technology is badly needed for endoscopic surgery. In order to see in 3D you need stereo vision which requires 2 separate images taken from slighly different angles and them superimposed. You body does this with your 2 eyes slighly separate on your face. In traditional laparoscopic surgery there is a single telescope and a single camera so all the images are in 2D. Unfortunately, depth perception is lost. How does the surgen operate then? What heppens with training and practice is that your brain picks up and other clues primarily shadowing and touch perception from your hands and the surgeon becomes able to interpolate a 3D space even though all of the visual skills are mising. This is one of the hardest if not the hardest step to learn when I teach surgeons to first perform laparoscopic surgery and some people just have a much harder time than others. Interestingly, with HD displays there is a pseudo-enhancement of depth perception that engineers and visual scientists tell me is due to the enhanced color fidelity and resolution and shadowing which allows the brain to pick up more 3D clues of the space from the 2D image! Still, the lack of true 3D data increases the difficulty of the procedures especially complex ones requiring suturing.

What is available today: Currently there are some attempts to address this limitation. They have required the use of head mounted displays with separate displays for each eye and separate imaging chips or lenses on the scopes but these have been heavy and cumbersome to use. Others such as some of the robotic solutions have immersed the surgeon’s head in a remote 2-panel display station but this also is a very complex solution. For years I have seen many many attempts at no-glasses 3D displays from various companies but all suffered from narrow viewing angles or poor resolution or other design issues.

2d

How this solution works. This is a display technology that they call 2D + depth. In order to generate a 3D image, the display requires a regular 2D representation of the image and a depth-map. This depth-map indicates the distance between each pixel and the viewer. The 2D image and the depth-map are used to create images on the screen, and these images are then merged by the viewer’s brain into a 3D sensation.

Lenticular Screen: The system works with lenses on the screen that provide a slgly different view for each eye (without the red-green glasses of the 50’s). A sheet of transparent lenses, is fixed on an LCD screen. This sheet sends different images to each eye, and so a person sees two images. These two images are combined by our brain, to create a 3D effect.

I’ll have to get ahold of one of these displays to see if it holds promise for the OR…

3-D-ready screens popping out all over - Aug 16, 2007

3-D-ready screens popping out all over

By Carolyn Giardina

Aug 16, 2007

The Walt Disney Co.'s October rerelease of "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 3-D digital cinema proved a success, playing in 168 theaters and grossing $8.7 million. It even ran in some venues until New Year's Day.

On Oct. 19, Disney again is rereleasing the film, but this year the studio is planning for a four-week run in about 600 theaters.

The 3-D-ready screens then will be needed to accommodate the debut of Paramount Pictures' 3-D "Beowulf" on Nov. 16, says Chuck Viane, president of distribution at Disney. "I would say within 12-18 months the marketplace will take care of itself," he says. "While the initial (3-D) installations are going on, you have to be quite cognizant of what is available to you in 3-D."

This shift could mark the arrival of a new stage in the 3-D digital-cinema movement.

Big titles are driving installations. Paramount estimates there will be 1,000 3-D-ready screens for "Beowulf," but that figure is skewed as it counts film-based Imax screens as well as digital installations from Real D and Dolby Digital Cinema. For digital 3-D releases, 3-D provider Real D is more optimistic, saying that it expects to exceed 1,000 screens in the fall. Dolby, which announced a 3-D digital-cinema system in March at ShoWest, is testing its technology in theaters and plans to roll out in time for "Nightmare" and "Beowulf." The company did not yet have screen-count figures.

Says John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners: "We are very bullish on 3-D and digital cinema. But filmmakers and distributors have to be realistic about the pace of integration when scheduling their movies for release."

This topic caught some attention recently when DreamWorks Animation's 3-D "Monsters vs. Aliens" was scheduled to open May 15, 2009 -- one week shy of Fox's James Cameron-helmed 3-D feature "Avatar." But this is not the only example as 2009 might see about 10 major 3-D digital releases.

"I think the biggest challenge is how quickly (2-D) digital cinema is going to roll out, that appears to be on a good track right now," Real D president Joshua Greer says. "As we get closer, I believe release patterns will work themselves out."

Adds Paramount president of distribution Jim Tharp: "So far (screen count) has not impacted our release date decisions. It would be a huge concern if there were movies coming out (in the same time frame) this year -- then it would not be adequate."

In the fall, National Geographic's "Seamonsters 3D" and "Lions 3D" are actually expected to open, but according to Real D, these would run during the day. Real D predicts there will be five or six 3-D openings in 2008, including "U2 3D" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

Predicts Viane: "2009 has more than its share of announced 3-D titles. Then you will see the digital revolution take over. Instead of everybody having one 3-D screen in a building, you will start to see theaters put in two, possibly even three, auditoriums that are 3-D capable. They will be able to hold over successful 3-D while still opening new 3-D. When you hear people like Robert Rodriguez talking about 3-D, they are not pipe dreams; their films are going to be made. (Exhibitors) are going to want to accommodate that product. They aren't going to want to give up those products early."