Technical equipment, surgeons, and scrub nurses are often clustered closely around the patient to secure a good visual overview and an efficient workflow. Operating rooms are restricted access areas because these facilities must be kept clean and sterile. However, this is not easily achievable when the scene of interest is the surgical field. Fixed focus is preferred because autofocus will adjust to focus on hands, instruments, or heads that may come into view. The camera distance must be constant to the surgical field to capture sharp images. (5) Individual preferences of the viewers 14, 15.ĭesigning a 3D camera setup begins with the capture of test videos recorded at various camera baseline distances and configurations to be used for subjective or automatic evaluation 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. (4) Characteristics of viewing devices such as screen size and viewing position 1, 11, 12, 13. (3) Distance to the object of interest and other scene characteristics such as the background. The 3D viewing experience is affected by five factors: (1) Camera configuration can either be parallel or toed-in as shown in Figure 1, (2) Baseline distance (the separation between the cameras). However, the lack of depth perception can make it hard for the non-surgical colleagues to fully understand the antero-posterior relationships between different anatomical structures and therefore also introduce a risk of misinterpretation of the anatomy 7, 8, 9, 10. Simple 2D video recordings of surgical procedures are a good start. Realistic depth perception can improve understanding 3, 4, 5, 6 of normal and abnormal anatomies. In surgery, 3D visualization can be used for education, diagnoses, pre-operative planning, and post-operative evaluation 1, 2. A total of 10 surgical scenarios were recorded. Surgery was paused to allow 40 consecutive 5-s video samples. It was programmed to perform a timed sequence of synchronized camera movements stepping through a range of test positions with baseline distance between 50-240 mm at incremental steps of 10 mm, and at two convergence distances of 1100 mm and 1400 mm. The robot was ceiling-mounted in the operating room.

To collect test data with minimum interference during surgery, with high precision and repeatability, the cameras were attached to each hand of a dual-arm robot. This paper presents a method for rapid and reliable data collection of stereoscopic 3D videos at different camera baseline distances and distances of convergence. In this setting, unobscured capture and realistic reproduction of the surgical procedures are difficult. It is a sterile environment, and the physical space is crowded with surgical staff and technical equipment. But access to the operating room and the surgical field is restricted. Stereo 3D video from surgical procedures can be highly valuable for medical education and improve clinical communication.

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