For all of their high-tech advantages, laparoscopic surgical systems are only capable of providing a two-dimensional visualization — or in other words, no depth perception

“This means that often surgeons can’t pinpoint the exact location of an organ until they brush up against it with their tools,” explains Ramsin Khoshabeh, a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. “I hate to put it this way, but some surgical procedures are still done by brute force.”

Khoshabe and his colleagues are part of the Video Processing Laboratory (VPL), which is run by electrical engineering professor Truong Nguyen from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. The researchers, who are also part of the UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), are working to bring three-dimensional video feeds into the operating room by leveraging the use of autostereoscopic displays. Their hope is that one day surgeons will not only be able to perform minimally invasive surgeries in 3D, they will be able to do so without having to wear potentially cumbersome 3D glasses.

“Surgeons are often slow to adapt to new technologies,” says Khoshabeh. “They worry that a new technology will be dangerous, that it will interfere with the procedure. They say, ‘I’ve been doing this the same way for 40 years; why change things?’

“To accommodate for all these types of mentalities, we are pitching 3D laparoscopic surgery as a supplement. It’s a way for surgeons to enhance their abilities, and it’s also a way for interns and everyone else in the room to learn from what they are doing by watching the video feed.”

Professor Truong Nguyen, from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), is an expert in digital signal processing. Other collaborators include world-renowned UCSD surgeons Dr. Mark Talamini (chairman of the UCSD Department of Surgery) and Dr. Santiago Horgan (director of Minimally Invasive Surgery), as well as Dr. Horgan’s researcher, Dr. Noam Belkind. The work being done at the VPL — with collaboration from visiting scholars from all around the world — is at the forefront of research in 3D processing.

Original story here: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-3d-room.html

Sony’s Next Generation Portable is without doubt one technological powerhouse thanks to its high specs and extensive quality features implemented in the system. However, one of the notable missing technologies is 3D.

Sony might be the company pushing 3D technology onto the market via its BRAVIA LCD TVs and PlayStation 3 games. Nevertheless, Sony Entertainment Europe boss, Andrew House, explained to Eurogamer why 3D support is absent from its forthcoming portable device, the NGP.

“We view 3D as having the greatest potential, in the near term, in what I would call a dedicated entertainment environment,” he said.

“And that’s in the home, around the television, and where it’s a shared experience. I think that’s really important. We struggle a little bit to see how that 3D, shared experience translates to portable devices as they currently stand.”

House revealed how Sony considered 3D at some point in the development process:

“In the development process, we had studied the possibility of introducing stereoscopic 3D feature to NGP, but decided not to install it. After careful consideration of our goal of offering users the ultimate portable entertainment experience with a revolutionary user interface we have decided to focus on the features and specs announced today first.

“SCE will continue to play an important role within Sony group by promoting 3D in tandem with Sony Corporation’s 3D compatible BRAVIA LCD TVs to deliver the sublime 3D entertainment in the living room and without having to go to the cinema. We will continue our effort to provide users with true 3D entertainment experience that only Sony can deliver.”

For full interview, check Eurogamer.

Original story posted here: http://tbreak.com/megamers/20589/news/sony-3d-has-great-potential-it’s-just-not-right-for-portable-devices.html