BACKGROUND: A custom, stereoscopic video camera was built to study the impact of decreased camera separation on a stereoscopically viewed, visual-manual task resembling some aspects of surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twelve naïve subjects and one of the experimenters were first trained in a ring placement task using the stereo-laparoscope and subsequently switched to the stereo-camera, which was used with differing camera separations ranging from 100% of the laparoscope's separation to a biocular view corresponding to no separation (2D). RESULTS: The results suggest firstly, that stereopsis (i.e., use of 3D laparoscopes) improves surgical performance over conventional 2D laparoscopes, and secondly that camera separation may be reduced 20-35% without appreciably degrading user performance. Even a 50% reduction in separation resulted in stereoscopically supported performance far superior compared to the 2D condition. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that existing 3D laparoscopes which use 5-mm camera separation may well be significantly miniaturized without causing substantial performance degradation.
BACKGROUND: A custom, stereoscopic video camera was built to study the impact of decreased camera separation on a stereoscopically viewed, visual-manual task resembling some aspects of surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twelve naïve subjects and one of the experimenters were first trained in a ring placement task using the stereo-laparoscope and subsequently switched to the stereo-camera, which was used with differing camera separations ranging from 100% of the laparoscope's separation to a biocular view corresponding to no separation (2D). RESULTS: The results suggest firstly, that stereopsis (i.e., use of 3D laparoscopes) improves surgical performance over conventional 2D laparoscopes, and secondly that camera separation may be reduced 20-35% without appreciably degrading user performance. Even a 50% reduction in separation resulted in stereoscopically supported performance far superior compared to the 2D condition. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that existing 3D laparoscopes which use 5-mm camera separation may well be significantly miniaturized without causing substantial performance degradation.
Authors: Y Munz; K Moorthy; A Dosis; J D Hernandez; S Bann; F Bello; S Martin; A Darzi; T Rockall Journal: Surg Endosc Date: 2004-02-02 Impact factor: 4.584