22 okt. 2020

3D imaging: from movie theater to surgical theater

HEALTHCARE 2 min om te lezen

It’s been a while since cinemas were revolutionized with 3D imaging in the Avatar era. Even then, 3D was not only restricted to movie theaters alone. It’s been used in theme parks, in manufacturing and prototyping and, yes, in the medical world.

Surgeons with 3D glasses, yes sir

3D imaging is an established technology used for complex surgeries that require minimal invasion for the patient. For this kind of surgeries, the surgeon relies on an endoscope that has a camera at its tip and sends a video signal to a display. Via the display, the OR team can track what is happening and the surgeon can decide on his actions. A major disadvantage of endoscopic surgery was, initially, that the surgeon had limited depth perception.

The advent of 3D endoscopes – and especially 3D 4K – changed this. Futuristic as it might look to imagine surgeons wearing 3D glasses, the 3D surgical imaging market has matured and professionalized. Nowadays, 3D imaging is widely used in hospitals all around the world.

Flexible 3D in the OR with Nexxis

The OR-over-IP system Nexxis now also supports 3D imaging over the network, which creates a whole new range of possibilities for OR staff using 3D during their interventions. First, a simple upgrade of Nexxis makes the system fully ready for 3D imaging.

Second, we’re releasing a new 4K surgical 3D display that has a built-in decoder. This means that it can seamlessly be plugged in to any existing or new Nexxis configuration. The display supports both 2D and 3D video signals and automatically adapts to the viewing mode, so it can be used in any intervention.

Discover our new 3D display

Third, Nexxis integrates the video source into its configuration. It can translate images from a 3D camera instantly into 2D images for 2D displays, and into 3D for the 3D display. This makes the system extremely flexible to use. All this without losing time or giving up on image quality.

On top of that, images can also be shared outside the OR, and be streamed or recorded.

With this package, we want to equip OR staff members with a flexible, easy-to-use system that offers them an immersive experience. It’s a next step we want to take to help hospitals enhancing efficiency in the OR and improving patient outcomes.

Let ‘em come, those complex interventions! ;)