Contagious infection-free medical interaction system with machine vision controlled by remote hand gesture during an operation.

Background and objective: Medical image visualization is a requirement in many types of surgery such as orthopaedic, spinal, thoracic procedures or tumour resection to eliminate risk such as "wrong level surgery". However, direct contact with physical devices such as mice or touch screens to control images is a challenge because of the potential risk of infection. To prevent the spread of infection in sterile environments, a contagious infection-free medical interaction system has been developed for manipulating medical images. Methods: We proposed an integrated system with three key modules: hand landmark detection, hand pointing, and hand gesture recognition. A proposed depth enhancement algorithm is combined with a deep learning hand landmark detector to generate hand landmarks. Based on the designed system, a proposed hand-pointing system combined with projection and ray-pointing techniques allows for reducing fatigue during manipulation. A proposed landmark geometry constraint algorithm and deep learning method were applied to detect six gestures including click, open, close, zoom, drag, and rotation. Additionally, a control menu was developed to effectively activate common functions. Results: The proposed hand-pointing system allowed for a large control range of up to 1200 mm in both vertical and horizontal direction. The proposed hand gesture recognition method showed high accuracy of over 97% and real-time response. Conclusion: This paper described the contagious infection-free medical interaction system that enables precise and effective manipulation of medical images within the large control range, while minimizing hand fatigue.