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MeVisLab-OpenVR prototyping platform for virtual reality medical applications.
Stijn De Buck1,2,3,4,5, Alexander Van De Bruaene6,7,8, Werner Budts6,7
1Imaging & Pathology Department, KU Leuven, Herestraat 49, BUS 7003, 3000, Leuven, Belgium. stijn.debuck@uzleuven.be.
Summary
This study introduces a flexible virtual reality (VR) platform for medical prototyping, enhancing intervention planning. The new system allows for easier development of VR applications for procedures like cardiac stent placement.
Area of Science:
- Medical visualization
- Virtual Reality (VR) technology
- Software engineering for medical applications
Background:
- Virtual Reality (VR) offers significant potential for medical diagnosis and intervention planning.
- Existing VR software solutions are often application-specific and lack flexibility.
- Previous attempts to integrate VR into medical prototyping software (MeVisLab) had limited functionality for development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a more generic and flexible VR solution for medical prototyping.
- To enhance the capabilities of MeVisLab for VR application development.
- To facilitate easier and more flexible development of VR prototypes for medical use.
Main Methods:
- Rendering arbitrary Open Inventor scenes to a graphical processing unit (GPU) texture for VR integration.
- Enabling flexible user interaction and rendering of complex, multi-object scenes.
- Testing the platform in the context of planning transcatheter cardiac stent placement.
Main Results:
- Successful development of a VR implementation for planning percutaneous treatment of sinus venosus atrial septal defects.
- Demonstrated intuitive planning and verification of medical procedures using the VR platform.
- The GPU texture rendering approach proved effective for complex scene visualization.
Conclusions:
- An improved method for linking OpenVR with MeVisLab has been developed.
- The new implementation offers enhanced flexibility for VR prototype development in medicine.
- This technology holds promise for further clinical validation across various medical disciplines.
