Dorsal surgery, e.g. herniated intervertebral discs, is a medical domain that can benefit from new techniques for visualization of medical data. On the way to the spinal column the surgeon has to pass several tissues. Reaching the operation site during an intervention is a difficult and sometimes hazardous undertaking and a direct view onto the vertebrae is nearly impossible. If possible, nowadays interventions concerning the spinal column are performed via keyhole surgery. Because there is only a small hole through the skin, the surgeon has to navigate his instruments according to the images created by the camera of the endoscope and screened on a monitor. One group of the chair for computer aided medical procedures and augmented reality (CAMPAR) works on the navigation- and AR-visualization system (NARVIS) that employs effects of computer graphic, techniques of visualization, a video see-through head mounted display (HMD) and an optical tracking system to enable a stereoscopic in-situ representation of CT data. Data can be aligned with the required accuracy and the surgeons can get an intuitive view onto and ”into“the patient. Current technology to represent medical data with this system suffers from a serious lack. Virtual imagery, such as a volume rendered spinal column, can only be displayed superimposed on real objects. If virtual entities of the scene are expected behind real ones, like the spinal column inside the human thorax, this lack implicates incorrect perception of the viewed objects respective their distance to the observer. The powerful visual depth cue interposition is responsible for this misinformation about depth. This thesis aims at the development and evaluation of methods that improve depth perception in stereoscopic AR. Its intention is to provide an extended view onto the human body that allows an intuitive localization of visualized bones and viscera such as vertebrae, muscles, ribs and blood vessels. Therefore various approaches were implemented and designed to create or intensify helpful depth cues within the workspace of a surgeon.     «

Dorsal surgery, e.g. herniated intervertebral discs, is a medical domain that can benefit from new techniques for visualization of medical data. On the way to the spinal column the surgeon has to pass several tissues. Reaching the operation site during an intervention is a difficult and sometimes hazardous undertaking and a direct view onto the vertebrae is nearly impossible. If possible, nowadays interventions concerning the spinal column are performed via keyhole surgery. Because there is...     »