Jennifer Silva (St Louis, USA) talks to BLearning Cardio at SIR 2019 (Society of Interventional Radiology; 23–28 March; Austin, USA) about why physicians should move away from using Virtual Reality (VR) during procedures and move towards augmented and mixed reality technologies.
While VR is “completely immersive”, the physicians using it “cannot have a meaningful interaction with their natural environment” notes Silva. As such, it is “really important” that the hardware progressed beyond standard VR into the augmented and mixed reality space for it “to become something we could use while performing a minimally invasive procedure.”
Silva goes on to explain the workings of the SENTIAR 3D augmented reality platform and other similar technologies which she says will provide greater “control, connectivity and computation” for physicians.
The major benefits of Augmented Reality (AR) go “well beyond providing 3D holograms” says Silva, who adds that what is also “hugely important” is that it offers the ability to “control the data you are looking at” as well as “connect various data streams together”. She notes that this may be the most important value add for the technology in clinical practice.
