Gestix: A Doctor-Computer Sterile Gesture Interface for Dynamic Environments

In this paper, we design a sterile gesture interface for users, such as doctors/surgeons, to browse medical images in a dynamic medical environment. A vision-based gesture capture system interprets user’s gestures in real-time to navigate through and manipulate an image and data visualization environment. Dynamic navigation gestures are translated to commands based on their relative positions on the screen. The gesture system relies on tracking of the user’s hand based on color-motion cues. A state machine switches from navigation gestures to others such as zoom and rotate. A prototype of the gesture interface was tested in an operating room by neurosurgeons conducting a live operation. Surgeon’s feedback was very positive.