VISION 2011: Premiere Of The Medical Technology Parcours

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http://www.photonicsonline.com/article.mvc/VISION-2011-Premiere-Of-The-Medical-0001?atc~c=771+s=773+r=001+l=aMachine vision systems in medical technology improve dentures, detect skin anomalies, simulate eye operations and monitor operating theatres
The health service is under enormous pressure. Firstly, individual preliminary medical services and health care should be available with high quality standards while secondly, costs should be reduced. "Machine vision can be a key technology here in order to combine these contradictory demands", said Alexander Temme, Sales Director at Basler. That's because camera-based medical technology can help to improve early detection, diagnosis, treatment, archiving and training methods. VISION 2011, the world's leading trade fair for machine vision (MV), will also pay closer attention to this future-oriented topic. "Feedback from VISION visitors in the last two years revealed that the topic of medical technology is becoming increasingly more important. This industry is now regarded as the fifth most important visitor industry", said Florian Niethammer, VISION Project Manager. Devicemed will support the key topic of medical technology as a media partner. The VDMA Machine Vision Group is also planning to hold talks relating to medical technology applications during the popular Industrial VISION Days. VISION 2011 will be staged for the 24th time at the Stuttgart Trade Fair Centre from 8 to 10 October 2011.
The range of applications in medical technology and the inventiveness of the innovations appear immeasurable: mini-cameras for endoscopies or minimally invasive surgery, scanners to improve the quality of dentures, skin scanners to identify skin cancer, sensitive digital cameras to analyse the retina in ophthalmology, movement analyses in sports medicine and orthopaedics, robot-aided operations, simulation of cosmetic improvements, monitoring and documentation of operations, as well as machine vision systems to support medical training are just some of the numerous examples.
Four representative exhibitors at VISION 2011 will show what is important in this respect and how useful machine vision systems can be in medical technology: for example, the ace cameras from Basler are being used to an increasing extent in digital dentistry. The image data of the dental impression recorded intraorally with a dental scanner are converted into a 3-D data model and are transmitted directly online to a dental laboratory where the dentures can be modelled automatically on a fully digital basis. "High speed is essential in this application. With 100 images per second, the ace camera ensures that the scanning operation saves times. At the same time it provides good image quality with low noise and excellent light sensitivity. This is important since not every part of the dental impression can be equally well-illuminated, but every detail is vital", said Temme. According to Alexander Temme, Sales Director at Basler, other advantages include the compact design of the ace camera and the unbeatable price-performance ratio which curbs cost pressure in dental medicine.
The focal point of the research at the research centre Carinthian Tech Research (CTR) in Villach is multispectral machine vision which, in addition to 3-D information, provides spectral, i.e. material, information on the condition of the tissue or cells, for example. "In production processes, for example, chemical compounds or subtle colour differences can be precisely analysed. That also makes this technology so interesting for medical technology applications", said Dr. Raimund Leitner, Head of Multispectral Machine Vision Research at CTR. Depending on the application, CTR works in wavelength ranges extending from ultraviolet (UV), visible light (VIS), the near infrared NIR) spectrum and mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) right up to the terahertz radiation range. CTR and a medical technology manufacturer have jointly developed a highly sensitive camera with which skin anomalies can be classified and detected within seconds. "The additional information from the system regarding benign birthmarks and malignant melanomas is determined by evaluating a multispectral image without having to remove the conspicuous birthmark by means of an operation", was Dr. Leitner's explanation of one advantage.
"One frequent machine vision task in medical applications is non-contact optical tracking of movements as a man-machine interface. In addition to precision and speed, stability and reliability are the decisive factors in this case", said Thomas Ruf, Head of R&D at VRmagic Imaging. The company has developed Eyesi, an eye surgery simulator, which can be used by trainee eye surgeons as a training aid for operations without any risk for patients. "Medical students can gather practical experience at an early stage of their training without endangering patients", added Ruf. Just like in the real life of a surgeon, the student sits at an operation microscope and guides freely movable operation instruments into the mechanical eye of a model head. Inside is an optical tracking system which follows the movements of the instruments and transmits their position, alignment and orientation to a computer. The behaviour of liquids and tissues when touched by an instrument is simulated in real time. The operator sees the simulation instead of a real image on the microscope display. "So that he/she really has the impression of actually carrying out the operation, the time delay of visual reproduction must be below the human perception threshold of 50 to 100 milliseconds", explained Ruf.
The area of medical technology contains a wide range of different imaging devices such as endoscopes, microscopes, X-ray units, CTs, MRIs and operating theatre monitoring cameras. The image sources used in these cases work with different interfaces, resolutions, video standards and control options. "One of the major challenges", said Rudolf Huber-Schwanninger, a medical technology specialist at STEMMER IMAGING, "is to install all these image sources in the clinical environment, have a very wide range of cable concepts available, operate the cameras, transmit, display, document and archive image and video data or also make the image data visible for remote diagnosis for example". STEMMER started precisely here with newly developed products and concepts, e.g. the medical video server which can be used to record, administer, display and distribute any current video sources via LAN/WAN, irrespective of whether they are SD, HD, analogue or digital.
What will the future bring? "There are now already camera-based treatments and diagnosis methods which permit a physical distance between the doctor and patient. These remote applications will definitely become more important in future", said Temme. In his opinion, small systems are also conceivable at the local optician that could carry out analyses to prevent and detect eyesight diseases at an early stage. Dr. Leitner from CTR emphasised: "In my opinion, molecular imaging will play a major role in future since it will make biological processes at a molecular, i.e. cellular, level visible and therefore provide an opportunity to detect diseases even before they occur." Experts agree that patients will be able to experience the advantages of machine vision even more directly in medical technology in future.
VISION 2011 will also be directly tangible as it will not only present the key topic of medical technology, but will also feature – as an extensive machine vision exhibition – all innovations in the areas of smart cameras, area scan cameras, line cameras, high-speed cameras, infrared cameras, vision sensors, frame grabbers, software tools, illumination, lenses, accessories, complete machine vision systems, innovative application solutions and services, as well as a practical accompanying programme. "The objective of VISION is to grow further, strengthen user proximity and extend its position as the world's leading trade fair", said Niethammer. "The latest registration figures for VISION 2011 reveal", added Niethammer, "that the recovery in the machine vision industry will have a direct impact on VISION 2011 because they are well above the figures from the previous year". With 323 exhibitors and an exhibition area of around 20,000 square metres, VISION 2010 also posted a record result.
SOURCE: VISION 2011