Ophthalmic Surgical Overlays for Depth-Aware Occlusion Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current image-guided surgical systems often cause discomfort and disrupt depth perception due to overlays appearing at inconsistent depths or occluding important surgical elements, leading to double vision and occlusion issues.
Innovation Solution
A method for displaying overlays that adjust their appearance based on the surgical field's elements, ensuring they appear at the desired depth and avoid occluding critical elements by varying transparency, brightness, or color within the surgical field.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If guidance information is overlaid on the intraoperative image, then the surgeon can view medical data and guidance during the procedure, but the overlay may appear at inconsistent depths and occlude important surgical elements, causing discomfort and disrupting depth perception
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by varying the appearance properties (transparency, brightness, color) of the overlay in different spatial regions of the image. The overlay is made less transparent or more faint in regions corresponding to deeper surgical structures, while maintaining higher visibility in regions corresponding to superficial structures. This creates a depth-dependent visual hierarchy that preserves both guidance information visibility and accurate depth perception.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new dimension of control by mapping the third dimension (depth/z-axis) to visual properties of the overlay. Instead of treating the overlay as a flat 2D element, the system encodes depth information by adjusting transparency and brightness levels, effectively projecting 3D spatial relationships onto the 2D display in a depth-aware manner that prevents occlusion artifacts.
2Loss of information
If the overlay is made highly visible, then guidance information is clear, but it occludes surgical elements and causes double vision and visual discomfort
Solution Approach 1:
The patent dynamically adjusts multiple visual parameters of the overlay including transparency, brightness, and color intensity. By changing these parameters based on the overlay's position relative to surgical elements at different depths, the system maintains guidance information clarity while reducing visual discomfort. The overlay automatically becomes more subtle in regions where it would otherwise cause occlusion or double vision.
3Measurement precision
If the overlay appears at the same depth as the anatomical region, then depth perception is maintained, but the overlay still occludes elements above the anatomical region
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by making the overlay's visual properties spatially variable rather than uniform. In regions where the overlay corresponds to deeper anatomical structures, it maintains higher visibility. In regions where it would occlude superficial surgical elements, the overlay becomes more transparent or fainter. This localized adjustment preserves depth perception while minimizing occlusion of the surgical field.
Data Source
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AI summary
Methods and systems for displaying an overlay superimposed with an intraoperative image of surgical field in a medical ophthalmic procedure, such that the overlay appears at a desired depth within the image are provided. Methods and system for displaying an overlay superimposed with a stereoscopic intraoperative image pair of a surgical field in a medical ophthalmic procedure are provided.