Enhancing a laparoscopy training system with augmented reality visualization

We report work in progress towards a system for laparoscopy training that is enhanced with an augmented reality display. The system can be used to perform peg-transfer training tasks using a Microsoft Hololens AR device, with full 6 degrees of freedom (DoF) shared presence with the pegboard workspace. This mode is in contrast to the conventional visualization, whose views are solely through a 2D or stereo laparoscope. In order to achieve this enhanced visualization, the system extracts the pose of the triangular prism being manipulated, and of the laparoscopic instruments with which the user manipulates the prism. These two objects are added to a CAD model of a (fixed) pegboard, and all the objects are visualized within the AR display. In the near future we expect to conduct user studies measuring accuracy and time-to-completion of this peg-transfer task using these new enhancements and compare it to conventional visualization techniques. We report our initial results of enhancing this trainer with a head-mounted AR display, with which the surgeon can visualize the laparoscopic scene and instruments from arbitrary viewpoints while naturally moving around the (internal) surgical scene. We expect that this capability, combined with the haptics feedback guidance, will provide more natural visualization, comprehension, and thus yield improved task performance.