Digital Holography Ushers Medical Tech Innovation

[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”354021934X” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41wRGDK9cLL._SL160_.jpg” width=”103″]Digital holography has come to the medical field in a big way. RealView Imaging Ltd, an Israeli start-up company, has created the world’s first 3D holographic interface that allows surgeons to work with digital representations of anatomy in real time—meaning that the hologram of a heart will palpitate just as the real one would in a surgeon’s hand.

With light points, RealView Imaging can accurately reconstruct holograms of just about anything—even a 3D ultrasound. These representations float in free space, and require no additional eyewear, screen or mouse to interact with. What separates RealView’s holography from standard holograms lies in the use of a Spatial Light Modulator that measures how light will diffract and scatter off an object’s geometry. This allows said object to be digitally reconstructed based on the calculations inferred, giving the 3D images as much true depth and perception to the human eye as possible.

Through an invention coined “image intimacy,” replications can be touched, zoomed, rotated and manipulated by the user’s hands or scalpel stylus. Examples of image intimacy capabilities include, but are not limited to: in-air marking and tagging of key points, measuring true distances with in-air quantification, placing a device such as a percutaneous valve or stent inside the hologram, and real-time spatial plane definition. RealView Imaging is in the process of making this a commercial product, and there have already been successful surgeries performed with its help at the Children’s Medical Center in Petach Tikva, Israel.

[easyazon-image align=”left” asin=”1848213441″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418R-h7vKUL._SL160_.jpg” width=”105″]To date, the company is the world’s first innovators of 3D medical holography, and this technology holds exciting prospects for future expansion. Imagine the impact it will have when it becomes available for mass distribution.

In a university setting, we would be able to better prepare the next generation of doctors and surgeons for the most complex surgeries of today, and those that have yet to materialize. It could also be used to detect abnormalities within the body and even early stages of tumors and cancer. For now, RealView Imaging CEO Aviad Kaufman further explains what this interactive 3D system can do, today, in this video demonstration.

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Photo credit: RealViewImaging.com

November 13, 2013 By Cory Healy

About the author

Cory Healy is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. When he's not writing about tech or music, he can either be found delivering food on bike throughout lower Manhattan, or playing computer games at home.