Augmented reality glasses improve real-time spatial tracking and surface-level annotations on the canine head.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility, accuracy, and reproducibility of an AR interface for enhancing spatial surface-level tracking on a canine head hologram. We hypothesized that spatial accuracy improves when virtual guides are overlayed directly onto the head rather than when annotations are transferred from a separate screen. Methods: We developed an augmented reality (AR) application in Unity compatible with XREAL's glasses that allowed users to annotate and interact with a realistic 3-D hologram of a dog head. Coordinate (distance) and outline (area) annotations were tested under 2 conditions: (1) transfer-seeing targets from a computer screen-and (2) direct-seeing the targets directly on the head. Results: The mean distance error was significantly lower for direct versus transfer coordinates (2.73 vs 3.42 mm). Similarly, accurate area coverage was higher (83.7% vs 63.3%) with AR guidance. Completion times differed significantly between the groups for coordinate tasks (11.2 vs 8.19 seconds) but not for area tracing (25.7 vs 26.8 seconds). Conclusions: AR-guided visualization improved spatial accuracy for both distance and area metrics without reducing speed. Clinical Relevance: These findings show that AR may be used to optimize surface-level spatial tracking on the canine head. Future work will focus on whether these findings can be translated to a clinical setting and if diagnostic imaging scans can be similarly overlayed onto the surgical plane to expand the medical applications of this technology.