Three-Dimensional Microscopic Surgical Videos: A Novel and Low-cost System

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging and videos are a very useful tool in the neurosurgical training, although unfortunately the 3D systems available have a very high cost. The objective of this study is to describe a novel and low-cost 3D microsurgical video system.

To obtain the 3D videos we use a surgical microscope, 2 video adapters, 2 cameras, and an HDMI cable. A video editor program is used for processing the videos. For the projection we use a computer with PowerPoint (Microsoft, Inc, Redmond, WA) software, a video splitter, DVI cables, 2 projectors, 2 polarization filters, and a "silver screen" with polarized glasses.

By using 2 equal cameras and video adaptors in each beam splitter port it was possible for us to obtain 2 videos that were equivalent to the images received by both surgeon's eyes. Using the video signal of both cameras during processing resulted in a 3D stereoscopic recording with Final Cut (Apple, Inc, Cupertino, CA) software. The polarized 3D format provided the best projection conditions. It does not alter the original colors of the videos and its prolonged visualization was more comfortable. The main advantage of this method is the ability to show in a realistic way the spatial relationships and the depth of the structures captured with the microscope.

This paper presents in a clear and detailed way how to create and use a low-cost 3D surgical video system.