Remote 3D medical consultation

Two-dimensional (2D) video-based telemedical consultation has been explored widely in the past 15-20 years. Two issues that seem to arise in most relevant case studies are the difficulty associated with obtaining the desired 2D camera views, and poor depth perception To address these problems we are exploring the use of a small array of cameras to reconstruct a real-time, on-line 3D computer model of the real environment and events. We call this 3D medical consultation (3DMC). The idea is to give remote users what amounts to an infinite set of stereoscopic viewpoints, simultaneously addressing the visibility and depth perception problems associated with 2D video. Here we describe our current prototype system, some of the methods we use, and some early experimental results