Swedish
researcher, Erik Vidholm at Uppsala University, working with the haptic
pen at the specially constructed work station that can show stereo
graphics
Research at Sweden’s Uppsala University will soon enable radiologists to feel
organs through computerised image analysis.
Erik
Vidholm at the University’s Centre for Image Analysis has worked on an
interactive method wherein a pen-like three-dimensional mouse enables
the doctor to feel virtual organs. He believes that the technology,
known as haptics, may make it easier to diagnose cancer, and plan a
potential treatment.
Computerised image analysis can be used
to determine the size of organs like the liver, or to construct
three-dimensional models of organs when surgery or radiation is being
planned, Vidholm says. “However, the quality of such images often
varies.”
Furthermore, humans can actually look very different
from each other inside, which makes it difficult for the computer to
find the information that is relevant. Thus, it is common to use
interactive methods in which doctors themselves mark the areas of
interest in the image, and let the computer do the rest of the work
based on this information.
Vidholm says that his technology
creates computer models from the scans of organs. These are then
measured to gauge the volume of the organ and to calculate its shape.
“To
get a greater sense of depth in the image we use stereo graphics. When
the models are to be adapted to the images, this is done partly
automatically on the basis of the content of the image and partly with the
input of the user wielding the haptic pen,” he says.
Vidholm has also devised a way to rapidly visualise complex image volumes.
He
has revealed that this technology has been used as a component in the
development of a method for more readily discovering breast cancer.
Most of these technologies are now freely available in a software package at
www.cb.uu.se/ research/haptics so that other researchers in medical image
analysis can benefit from them.
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