Dumay A C
TNO Physics and Electronics Laboratory, The Hague, The Netherlands.
Technol Health Care. 1995 Oct;3(2):75-89.
Virtual Environments allow a human to interact with a (computer) system in such a way that a high level of presence in a computer-synthesised world is experienced. In principle, all human senses are involved with the interaction. Many applications may benefit from this type of human-machine interfacing, however, few have emerged so far for medicine. In this paper we elaborate on some realistic potential applications of Virtual Environment technology in the field of medicine. These applications can be found in education/training, therapy, surgery, rehabilitation, diagnosis, telemedicine and biomechanics. The value to be added to these applications by VE technology lies in the fact that patient data or patient models may be moderated to the physician in a more intuitive and natural manner. Despite these potentials, the short-term feasibility of these applications can be put into question for various reasons. Firstly, the current generation of display devices have a resolution that may show to be too low to achieve a sufficiently high degree of realism for medical applications. Secondly, there are no commercially-available actuators for tactile and force feedback which the physician desperately need for the simulation of the contact with the (virtual) patient. Thirdly, the enormous computing power required for these applications (still) needs a considerable investment. With these limitations in mind, we believe that we are at the cradle of a whole new generation of VE applications in medicine.
虚拟环境允许人类以一种能在计算机合成世界中体验到高度临场感的方式与（计算机）系统进行交互。原则上，人类的所有感官都参与到这种交互中。许多应用可能会从这种人机接口类型中受益，然而，到目前为止医学领域中出现的此类应用却很少。在本文中，我们详细阐述了虚拟环境技术在医学领域的一些现实潜在应用。这些应用可见于教育/培训、治疗、手术、康复、诊断、远程医疗和生物力学。虚拟环境技术为这些应用所带来的价值在于，患者数据或患者模型可以以一种更直观和自然的方式呈现给医生。尽管有这些潜力，但由于各种原因，这些应用的短期可行性仍可能受到质疑。首先，当前一代显示设备的分辨率可能被证明对于医学应用来说过低，无法实现足够高的真实度。其次，目前没有用于触觉和力反馈的商业可用致动器，而医生在模拟与（虚拟）患者的接触时迫切需要这些。第三，这些应用所需的巨大计算能力（仍然）需要大量投资。考虑到这些限制，我们相信我们正处于医学领域全新一代虚拟环境应用的摇篮期。
