A Hybrid User Interface for Manipulation of Volumetric Medical Data

This paper presents a novel system for interactive visualization and manipulation of medical datasets for surgery planning based on a hybrid VR / Tablet PC user interface. The goal of the system is to facilitate efficient visual inspection and correction of surface models generated by automated segmentation algorithms based on x-ray computed tomography scans, needed for planning surgical interventions. Factors like the quality of the visualization, nature of the dataset and interaction efficiency strongly influence system design decisions, in particular the design of the user interface, input devices and interaction techniques, leading to a hybrid setup. Finally, a user study is presented, which characterizes the system in terms of method efficiency and usability.