Usually, the standard operating procedure (see what I did there?) dictates that, for a surgeon to view a patients MRI and/or CT scan data, the surgeon must leave the OR, put on another pair of gloves, memorize the data, then re-sterilize and head back to the OR.
University of Toronto general surgery resident and engineer Matt Strickland, mechatronics engineer Jamie Tremaine and computer engineer Greg Brigley built around this by hacking a Kinect unit to display the data on a screen suspended from the OR ceiling, which allows surgeons to navigate through it without touching a keyboard or leaving the sterile OR.
Dr. Calvin Law (above) demonstrates the Kinect hack.
Dr. Law has used this new method in six liver cancer surgeries so far, he told the Canadian Online Explorer. He also reported that this solution fills a gap in his team's needs, since "there's no computer than(sic) can be sterile or clean."
At this time, Microsoft has not released any official tools for modifying Kinect, but that didn't stop ambitious programmers from doing it since day one. With enough ingenuity, ideas like this one have surfaced. And some people still say you can't learn anything from video games.
this is both awesome and disturbing
ReplyDeleteOK, so I'll give you that! Video games put to good use!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as an engineer, Kinect isn't a video game tool, its a completely new piece of technology that is going to revolutionize industry. In my opinion, its applications are actually much more varied than video games will be able to take advantage of, being a somewhat limited medium.
ReplyDeleteThe Kinect is literally on the forefront of real-time augmented reality technology; its recognition algorithms are unparalleled! The next closest competitor is mere software, Google's Goggles. I don't know if you've used that or not, but its pretty terrible.
Granted, the Kinect has room for improvement. It can't recognize fine movements like individual fingers, and it must be calibrated per individual user. If someone not even 5 feet tall tries to use someone's profile who is over 6 feet tall, it won't work. At all.
I could babble about this forever; my Senior Design project involves poking at the forefront of the same field.
It's not really a case of video games teaching the world new tricks. Actually, my initial reaction to the announcement of the Kinect (then Project Natal) was that its capabilities lends itself to purposes FAR beyond the reaches of a mere entertainment product, and a fairly reclusive one at that. The Kinect should have been embraced as a new product with limitless potential in practical and impractical applications rather than 'this is our new video game gimmick, neat huh?' I'd wager that a good portion of those impressive holiday Kinect sales figures were to people who had no intention of playing silly Xbox games. More power to them, let's just hope Microsoft doesn't try to shit all over it.
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