Computer Vision News - March 2021

Congrats, Doctor! 12 One common method to fix fractures of the human hand after an accident is an osteosynthesis with Kirschner wires (K-wires) to stabilize the bone fragments. The insertion of K-wires by manually drilling is a delicate minimally invasive surgery, because surgeons operate almost without a sight and consequently cannot see structures at risk like vessels and nerves. Due to this limited view, surgeons need to perfectly localize underlying risk structures only by feeling of specific bony protrusions of the human hand and a two-dimensional (2D) X-ray representation. Thus, a thorough theoretical and practical training of young surgeons is necessary to perform such interventions safely and error-free in finding the best K-wire position and orientation along the bone fragments. Since traditional training methods are time consuming, costly and insufficient, in my thesis I developed a novel virtual reality (VR) based haptic and visual assisted training system (HaptiVisT) for the placement of K-wires to help hand surgeons learn the drilling procedure in a realistic environment. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) segmented volume data are visualized by an autostereoscopic (AS ) single-user three-dimensional (3D) monitor , which is combined with a force-feedback assisted hardware for a haptic drilling experience. To achieve an intuitive bimanual haptic a hand phantom is created by rapid prototyping using 3D printing. Realistic haptic features are important to palpate protrusions of the bone to determine the drilling starting point and angle. An optical real-time tracking is used to transfer position and rotation of the hand phantom to the system visualization. Johannes Maier has just completed his PhD in Medical Computer Science at ReMIC, lab of Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule (OTH) in Regensburg with the very best grade: summa cum laude! Supervisor Christoph Palm thinks that his thesis is worth three PhD’s, as it includes many innovations in 3D-printing, man-machine- interfaces, surgery training and more. Johannes currently works as a Software Engineer at DATEV eG. Congrats, Doctor Johannes!