Device lets readers gesture through images

May 8, 2008 Device lets readers gesture through images Douglas Page -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first practical intuitive device for browsing digital images using only hand gestures is being tested in intensive care settings and operating suites. Gestix is a video-based gesture capture and recognition system used to manipulate MR images. It was designed, as a joint effort between the Institute for Medical Informatics at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, and Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, to address ICU sterility issues and surgical focus control (J Am Med Inform Assoc 2008;15:321-323). "In the ICU, the use of computer keyboard, mouse, and joystick by physicians to access medical records and digital images is a common means of spreading infections," said industrial engineer Juan P. Wachs, Ph.D., currently of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. Wachs said that while other noncontact methods of image manipulation, such as voice control, also offer sterility advantages, these aren't practical in ORs. "The noise level in ORs makes voice control systems problematic," he said. Wachs said Gestix gives surgeons in the OR a means of maintaining focus while achieving rapid interaction with the image. Gestix consists of a Canon VC-C4 camera placed over a flat-screen monitor and an Intel Pentium IV (600MHz, Windows XP) with a Matrox Standard II video-capturing device.

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