Computer Vision News - May 2020

3 Summary WEISS Dan Stoy nov 15 Dan Stoyanov is a professor in computer science specialising in robot vision for surgical applications. He is director of the Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (WEISS). Continuing our series of interviews with MICCAI experts, Dan speaks to us about his work, and progress and innovation in the field of AI in surgical imaging. Surgical practice has evolved and adopted new ideas and advancements in technology, including development of instrumentation, improved imaging capabilities and,more recently, robotics. “Closest to the work that I’m personally involved in, is the data and AI evolution in computer vision and deep WEISS Dan S t oyanov Danail Stoyanov learning that’s happened,” Dan tells us. Data is being embraced by surgery in order to steer better processes and understanding. “From the WEISS perspective, new capabilities in sensing, imaging modalities, miniaturization of devices, and the new generation of robotic platforms that are already here and are going to be emerging are very important.” Over the last few years, the area of endoscopic computer vision has really ramped up. There are a growing number of algorithms to detect anatomy, to track instruments, and to try to understand workflow and analysis of activity. “I think that technology is maturing,” Dan opines. “More and more datasets are emerging in that space, challenges like EndoVis are being organised, and that really stimulated research. It’s very exciting and an area where those algorithms are becoming more robust and clinically applicable.” A number of companies are looking at how these technologies can transition into the operating room , either during procedures or for post-operative analysis. Dan thinks the next layer/ generation of algorithms could be used to understand pathologically interesting information, like disease diagnosis and identification of risk factors .