Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

The invention relates generally to a medical apparatus and method of using the same for receiving and transmitting streaming medical imagery and audio signals in real time, and allowing remote operators to annotate and telestrate with same. The invention acquires streaming medical imagery and audio signals through a telestreamer input device, allowing users to electronically collaborate, generally by telestrating, annotating, and sketching image overlays on streaming medical imagery. Video images of streaming imagery data displayed on a monitor are superimposed onto a virtual mesh projected via computer graphics. The vertices of the mesh move according to equations of motion based on a computational physics engine. Virtual tools are projected above the mesh via computer graphics. These virtual tools interact with the virtual mesh according to the physics engine. The superposition of the video images onto the virtual mesh makes it appear that points within the video image are moving in a realistic manner and reacting to the virtual tools with a realistic response. The invention allows for recursive superposition of mesh layers, also known as ‘surgi-skins’, and creation of a multi-layered virtual mesh. Multi-layered surgi-skins synthesized from multi-modal streaming medical imagery and saved together with multi-dimensional [4-D] virtual mesh and multi-sensory annotation in single file format as DICOM files are also known as ‘DICOM mesh’ or ‘haptic holograms’.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim