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Evaluation of user-interfaces for controlling movements of virtual minimally invasive surgical instruments
Dehlela Shabir1, Malek Anbatawi1, Jhasketan Padhan1
1Department of Surgery, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar.
Background:
Recent tele-mentoring technologies for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) augments the operative field with movements of virtual surgical instruments as visual cues. The objective of this work is to assess different user-interfaces that effectively transfer mentor's hand gestures to the movements of virtual surgical instruments.
Methods:
A user study was conducted to assess three different user-interface devices (Oculus-Rift, SpaceMouse, Touch Haptic device) under various scenarios. The devices were integrated with a MIS tele-mentoring framework for control of both manual and robotic virtual surgical instruments.
Results:
The user study revealed that Oculus Rift is preferred during robotic scenarios, whereas the touch haptic device is more suitable during manual scenarios for tele-mentoring.
Conclusion:
A user-interface device in the form of a stylus controlled by fingers for pointing in 3D space is more suitable for manual MIS, whereas a user-interface that can be moved and oriented easily in 3D space by wrist motion is more suitable for robotic MIS.
