Anatomical Mirroring: Real-time User-specific Anatomy in Motion Using a Commodity Depth Camera

International audienceThis paper presents a mirror-like augmented reality (AR) system to display the internal anatomy of a user. Using a single Microsoft V2.0 Kinect, we animate in real-time a user-specific internal anatomy according to the user’s motion and we superimpose it onto the user’s color map. The user can visualize his anatomy moving as if he was able to look inside his own body in real-time. A new calibration procedure to set up and attach a user-specific anatomy to the Kinect body tracking skeleton is introduced. At calibration time, the bone lengths are estimated using a set of poses. By using Kinect data as input, the practical limitation of skin correspondance in prior work is overcome. The generic 3D anatomical model is attached to the internal anatomy registration skeleton, and warped on the depth image using a novel elastic deformer, subject to a closest-point registration force and anatomical constraints. The noise in Kinect outputs precludes any realistic human display. Therefore, a novel filter to reconstruct plausible motions based onfixed length bones as well as realistic angular degrees of freedom (DOFs) and limits is introduced to enforce anatomical plausibility. Anatomical constraints applied to the Kinect body tracking skeleton joints are used to maximize the physical plausibility of the anatomy motion, while minimizing the distance to the raw data. At run-time,a simulation loop is used to attract the bones towards the raw data, and skinning shaders efficiently drag the resulting anatomy to the user’s tracked motion.Our user-specific internal anatomy model is validated by comparing the skeleton with segmented MRI images. A user study is established to evaluate the believability of the animated anatomy

Innovative Technologies for Medical Education

This chapter aims to assess the current practices of anatomy education technology and provides future directions for medical education. It begins by presenting a historical synopsis of the current paradigms for anatomy learning followed by listing their limitations. Then, it focuses on several innovative educational technologies, which have been introduced over the past years to enhance the learning. These include E-learning, mobile apps, and mixed reality. The chapter concludes by highlighting future directions and addressing the barriers to fully integrating the technologies in the medical curriculum. As new technologies continue to arise, this process-oriented understanding and outcome-based expectations of educational technology should be embraced. With this view, educational technology should be valued in terms of how well the technological process informs and facilitates learning, and the acquisition and maintenance of clinical expertise

Learning Anatomy for Pre Schools Via Kinect Technology

In this project, we will discuss about the development and implementation of Kinect in learning body parts for pre-schoolers. The objective of this project is to introduce a new form of learning to children, to explore the use of Kinect based technology on science subject in schools, to develop a Kinect system for biology subject and make it more interactive, and finally to evaluate the reaction and acceptance of this technology in learning. The reason this project was decided is that to improve the current method of learning in schools. Traditional learning styles are usually boring and linear. This had caused some students to lose interest in the subject. So teachers are in constant need to do something to attract student’s attentions and gain their interest. This is where my project comes in.We will develop software that uses Kinect technology to make learning more fun. Since we only have about 3 months time to develop this project, the methodology chosen for the system development is Throw-away-Prototyping. The reason this method is chosen is that it is fast and it helps to give clearer view of what the final product will looks like.In the course of the development of this project, there is a few problems that encountered. One of them is that it is not possible to use 3D model in the project within the time frame. So the solution is that pictures or images will be used instead of 3D models. The final prototype will have 3 main functions; the head where the students can learn about parts of their head or faces, the second part is the body where the student can learn which part of the body is called what. The final part is the extra where the pre-schoolers can have some fun

Future Trends of Virtual, Augmented Reality, and Games for Health

Serious game is now a multi-billion dollar industry and is still growing steadily in many sectors. As a major subset of serious games, designing and developing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and serious games or adopting off-the-shelf games to support medical education, rehabilitation, or promote health has become a promising frontier in the healthcare sector since 2004, because games technology is inexpensive, widely available, fun and entertaining for people of all ages, with various health conditions and different sensory, motor, and cognitive capabilities. In this chapter, we provide the reader an overview of the book with a perspective of future trends of VR, AR simulation and serious games for healthcare