Augmented Reality-Based Visualization for Echocardiographic Applications

Echocardiography has become a widely used imaging technique for the diagnosis and follow-up of heart disease. However, the acquisition of high-quality echocardiographic images requires extensive training, which limits the adoption of the technique by nonexpert users. This chapter describes the main elements required to build an AR system that can be used for teaching purposes, which mimics the conditions encountered in the echocardiographic laboratory. Then, we describe a specific implementation of an AR system that combines a highly descriptive geometric model of the heart with US data that is acquired in real time and with a video feed containing the subject to be imaged. It will be shown that a low-cost AR system can be built and implemented on an off-the-shelf tablet device. The usability of the system has been tested on a group of medical students who had limited knowledge of US, and early results are shown.