The question is not whether disruptive technologies will transform the healthcare job market, but rather how and when will it happen. Healthcare navigators, augmented/virtual reality operation planners and nanomedicine engineers in the second part of my article series about future jobs in healthcare.
Princess Leia’s holographic plea in the classic film “Star Wars” inspired researchers to work toward a device that could project real-life sci-fi holograms. Now, the futuristic 3D imaging may be one step closer to reality.
A team of physicists at the Australian National University (ANU) invented a tiny device that creates the highest-quality holographic images ever achieved, the scientists said.
Study lead researcher Lei Wang, a Ph.D. student at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering, said he first learned about the concept of holographic imaging from the “Star Wars” movies. However, these futuristic-looking 3D images could be used for more practical ends than sending messages from a galaxy far, far away. [Photos: Microsoft’s HoloLens Transforms Surroundings with Holographic Tech].
Current holographic technologies are nowhere near capable of producing realistic, life-size projections that maintain quality from an array of viewing angles like those portrayed in movies like Star Wars. But things are moving in the right direction with researchers having developed a new type of 3D dynamic holographic display that they claim performs 2,600 times better than existing technologies.
One key limitation to current holographic display technology is that, despite two-dimensional display technologies with tens of millions of pixels, it takes a lot more information than is contained in all those megapixels to generate a sizable 3D image. Using existing display and wavefront modulator technology, which is an optical manipulation device that controls the direction of the light, a tiny hologram about 1 cm in size with a narrow viewing angle of 3 degrees is about as good as it gets.
The more impressive holograms in recent years, like a memorable one of Tupac Shakur, were actually two-dimensional projections, while others require special equipment like augmented reality goggles such as Microsoft’s HoloLens. In essence, these are really just optical illusions.
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Is it wise to make medical students feel like renegade fictional genius Tony Stark, magically waving human bodies apart like the holographic diagrams in the Iron Man basement lab? Should we use technology to make millennials feel like superheroes? Stop asking difficult philosophical questions and look at how cool this is.
This augmented reality app is called Project Esper. It uses hand gestures to allow the users move and study anatomy. Users can pull the human body apart and investigate the organs and limbs piece by piece. Look—just look at this magical Star Trek karate:
My doctor needs one of these.
CAE Healthcare announced the release of CAE VimedixAR, an ultrasound training simulator integrated with the Microsoft HoloLens, the world’s first self-contained holographic computer. The announcment marks CAE Healthcare as the first company to bring a commercial Microsoft HoloLens application to the medical simulation market.
VimedixAR delivers an unprecedented simulation-based training experience, allowing learners to interact and move freely within a clinical training environment that is augmented with holograms. For the first time, students will be able to examine 3D anatomy inside the body of the Vimedix manikin. As learners practice scanning an animated heart, lungs or abdomen, they will observe in real-time how the ultrasound beam cuts through anatomy to generate a ultrasound image.
Learners can elevate the VimedixAR hologram above the body to gain an understanding of human anatomy and how its circulatory, respiratory and skeletal structures are integrated. The hologram of the heart, for example, can be isolated and enlarged, rotated, and turned as it floats at eye level. If a learner is struggling to understand a concept, he or she will be able to walk around the hologram to gain a different perspective.
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Microsoft’s HoloLens hologram headset systems are already being used in the Australian, Ukrainian and Israeli military forces, and now the US military is also finding a use for Microsoft’s most advanced technology.
In recent exercises, forces from the Marines held a weeklong exercise called Spartan Emerging Technology and Innovation Week at North Carolina. The event featured various training technologies – from quadcopters to augmented reality developed with support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to accelerate the development of decision-making skills.
The limitless applications of 3D data visualization will enable a more efficient approach to many of life’s problems. Each day, developers exploring this technology are finding new ways to solve these problems in mixed reality; 3D modeling, easier house management, spinal surgery, and forest fire management are just a few recent examples of ways 3D data visualization can benefit us all.
The military, on the other hand, has quite a different set of problems to manage.
From a logistics standpoint, there are a lot of moving parts in the military to consider such as personnel, deployment, training, resources, and supply lines, to name just a few things that have to be managed constantly. Here we are talking big-picture ideas that could utilize 3D data visualization from a top-down view. If we scale down to real-time operations for individual missions, there’s recon, intel, tracking, and response, and this list could keep going.
The Royal Australian Air Force is exploring the potential of augmented reality as the organisation undertakes the largest technological upgrade in its history.
The Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group (part of the Department of Defence) and Saab Australia, demonstrated a 3D visualisation application developed for Microsoft HoloLens to 50 key Air Force and Defence personnel towards the end of last year.
Chief of Air Force, Air Marshall Leo Davies, trying the technology for the first time, indicated a growing role for augmented reality vision (ARV) tech in the Air Force.
