CHICAGO - It may not be what purists consider medical imaging, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. An Atlanta company is making its radiology debut at the RSNA conference this week with a new system capable of taking a 3-D image of the surface of a patient in less than a second.
The company, 3dMD, is targeting cosmetic surgery as its initial market. But the technology could find its way into medical imaging in a variety of applications.
3dMD’s business is based on a technology called digital surface photogrammetry, which uses light of different wavelengths to capture the surface of the human form, with full tone, texture, and skin tone, according to Jack Coats, president of the company. The firm’s first product is DSP400, a 3-D face imaging system. An upper-body product, DSP800, is also in the works.
DSP400 is about the size of an ultrasound cart, and is mounted on wheels for easy mobility. There are two sets of cameras in the system, one for infrared light and one for white light. The patient is seated in front of the system, and the lights are flashed -- the infrared light captures the geometry of the patient, while the white light captures the patient’s skin texture.
The acquired data is then reconstructed with surface-rendering algorithms not unlike those already used in medical image processing. The resulting image can be stored on a CD or sent over a network to a dedicated workstation that contains image-processing algorithms.
3dMD is targeting DSP400 at the cosmetic surgery market, where surgeons are currently using photographs for surgical planning. With the system, a plastic surgeon can make exact measurements, and can sculpt images to illustrate to patients the potential impact on their appearance of a particular surgical technique. The product can also be used to precisely measure the outcome of surgery by melding pre-surgery and post-surgery images, Coats said.
While plastic surgery is 3dMD’s current target market, future applications will bring the technology more closely into the realm of medical imaging. The company is working with Guy’s St. Thomas Hospital in London on integrating the technology with imaging modalities.
One possibility is in image registration, Coats said. DSP cameras could be installed in the imaging suites of a CT scanner and a PET camera. A DSP image would be acquired along with images from each modality. Because they are images of the same anatomy, the DSP images could be overlaid on each other, and as a result the CT and PET images would be registered precisely, Coats said.
The system could also be used in a similar fashion during image-guided surgery procedures. DSP images could replace fiducial markers, resulting in less patient trauma, according to Coats. Farther down the road, DSP images could be incorporated into electronic patient records, he said.
3dMD is selling DSP400 for about $89,000, a price that includes both the acquisition unit and the image-processing computer. The DSP800 upper-body unit will probably be available in March of 2001, Coats said.
By Brian Casey
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
November 28, 2000
Copyright © 2000 AuntMinnie.com
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