Experimental Assessment of a Novel Touchless Interface for Intraprocedural Imaging Review

Purpose To examine the feasibility of a novel technology platform that enables real-time touchless interaction with radiology images in both a simulated and an actual clinical setting. Materials and Methods This platform offers three different modes for image interaction. The gesture recognition mode uses a depth camera to detect the user’s hand gestures which are translated to image manipulation commands. The light projection mode uses the same camera to detect finger point-and-tap movements above the icons which are projected on a surface to activate the commands. The capacitive sensing mode is enabled by a handheld, portable device, over which finger movements are detected by capacitive sensors to control the image review. Following initial feedback, light projection and capacitive sensing modes were selected for further testing by comparing with the conventional mode of image interaction in time trials for performing a series of standardized image manipulation tasks. Finally, the usability of the technology platform was examined in actual clinical procedures. Results The light projection and the capacitive sensing modes were evaluated in the time trials and exhibited 60% and 71% reduction in time, respectively, relative to the control mode ( p < 0.001). Clinical feasibility for this platform was demonstrated in three actual interventional radiology cases. Conclusion Accessing, navigating, and extracting relevant information from patient images intraprocedurally are cumbersome and time-consuming tasks that affect safety, efficiency, and decision-making during image-guided procedures. This study demonstrated that the novel technology addressed this issue by allowing touchless interaction with these images in the sterile field.