This image was created for a grant proposal. We wanted to create an image that would show the ideal end result of our research. I made sure to include important elements, like a control interface for a two segment catheter and screen images from the type of mapping equipment we planned to use. Most of the elements of this picture were based on bits and pieces of pictures of EPs in the OR. I then made a drawing from each photograph and layered them together in this image. Still ignorant of vector graphics at the time this was all done in Paint.net at a reasonably large scale. The most interesting part for me was figuring out a way to manipulate the EKG screenshots so that they would appear at the correct angle to fit into the screens that I had drawn. A plugin for Paint.net allowed me to distort these images to fit after some trial and error. We ended up getting our grant, so I at least know that the picture didn't lose it for us!Saturday, August 20, 2011
Catheter in use
This image was created for a grant proposal. We wanted to create an image that would show the ideal end result of our research. I made sure to include important elements, like a control interface for a two segment catheter and screen images from the type of mapping equipment we planned to use. Most of the elements of this picture were based on bits and pieces of pictures of EPs in the OR. I then made a drawing from each photograph and layered them together in this image. Still ignorant of vector graphics at the time this was all done in Paint.net at a reasonably large scale. The most interesting part for me was figuring out a way to manipulate the EKG screenshots so that they would appear at the correct angle to fit into the screens that I had drawn. A plugin for Paint.net allowed me to distort these images to fit after some trial and error. We ended up getting our grant, so I at least know that the picture didn't lose it for us!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Cathter PR
Over the years of working on this project I've had to generate a photographs of actual prototypes for use in university news magazines or journal publications. The one above is one of my favorites and also the least scientific. If the frame of this photo were expanded just a bit, my finger could be seen holding the tip of the catheter prototype to create this dramatic twisting bend. This photo was really taken for my own enjoyment and was never meant to be anything scientific. Never the less, it has been used as a background on websites, software interfaces and posters relating to the catheter. I guess it quickly conveys the fantasy of a very maneuverable catheter.
This image is a much more honest semi-scientific result. It is an overlay of the catheter being controlled with electrical current while reaching around obstacles placed on a flat board. One consequence of the overlay is that it is tough to tell which pieces of catheter belong to which element of the overlay, giving the illusion that the catheter has three segments. I was hoping to create this image by exposing the same piece of film multiple times while I steered the catheter around. This did not create the effect that I was looking for so I ended overlaying the different positions with varying levels of opacity to give the illusion of movement. This one has also been a surprisingly long lived image and I think it still represents clearly what we are trying to do.
And finally, the image that we put in the university engineering magazine. I really wanted to make a clean looking image for the magazine but unfortunately only had some dirty old foam board to use as a background. The catheter itself was also an older prototype which had degraded in appearance after sitting out in the open for too long. In photoshop, I cleaned up the background to give it a more uniform tone and fiddled with the white balance to return the catheter to a more healthy looking hue. I also rotated the dime so that it would look like I had actually been paying attention to little details like that while taking the picture! The coin-curl is the classic pose for a catheter PR photo and I couldn't resist trying to recreate it here even though this particular prototype was not capable of tightly enclosing the coin. Perhaps a quarter or a dollar coin would have been a better choice.
And finally, the image that we put in the university engineering magazine. I really wanted to make a clean looking image for the magazine but unfortunately only had some dirty old foam board to use as a background. The catheter itself was also an older prototype which had degraded in appearance after sitting out in the open for too long. In photoshop, I cleaned up the background to give it a more uniform tone and fiddled with the white balance to return the catheter to a more healthy looking hue. I also rotated the dime so that it would look like I had actually been paying attention to little details like that while taking the picture! The coin-curl is the classic pose for a catheter PR photo and I couldn't resist trying to recreate it here even though this particular prototype was not capable of tightly enclosing the coin. Perhaps a quarter or a dollar coin would have been a better choice.Catheter Cross Section
This image was created very early in the design phase for the catheter when I still had no idea how a real catheter was actual put together. This model was built in 3D using solidworks which I then tweaked the perspective on before recording a screenshot. I then traced the screenshot with black outlines of varying thickness, meant to emphasize the perspective. I wanted to use a 3D model as the basis for this image because it would take care of the shading on all of the many rounded surfaces for me.
Atrial Fibrillation
I don't really know how to use any animation software so each frame was made as a .png using Paint.net and warp functions to make the heart move. The frames were sequenced, repeated and assembled into movie files which I then edited together with movie maker. No one would be fooled into thinking we actually paid anyone to do this, but it was used in a local news story about our lab!
Early Liver Retractor Demo
This is another video that I made of an earlier prototype of the liver retractor. It does not include the write portion of the retractor which allows the fingers to be manipulated much more nimbly due to the reduced friction in the line back to the motor box. The steel wire that is controlling the movement of the retractor is wound around motors that are housed in the aluminum box in the background of the video. I used a braided metal hose from home depot to prevent kinking in the line guiding the pull wires back to the box.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Liver Retractor Demo
This is a video demonstration that I recorded for the retractor described in the previous two posts. You may notice that the "wrist" portion of the retractor is significantly shorter by the end of the video. This is because I broke the retractor while recording this demo and had to shorten it to get it working correctly. The shorter version functioned much better and allowed for a tighter bend in the wrist section.
The overall retractor worked fairly well, but unfortunately was not the ideal design for the purpose it was supposed to serve. I fell prey to the common problem of overestimating the scale at which the surgery took place. I had taken measurements and looked at videos and it seemed that the abdomen was a great cavernous space with room for a 5 inch long robot. During testing I realized that realistically, the "ledge" on the liver that I would be wrapping this retractor around was very narrow. A better approach would have been to think of the retractor as pushing the liver out of the way rather than lifting it up. A better design would have been more like a tent frame that supported the liver while staying out of the way of the surgeon operating on the stomach.
The overall retractor worked fairly well, but unfortunately was not the ideal design for the purpose it was supposed to serve. I fell prey to the common problem of overestimating the scale at which the surgery took place. I had taken measurements and looked at videos and it seemed that the abdomen was a great cavernous space with room for a 5 inch long robot. During testing I realized that realistically, the "ledge" on the liver that I would be wrapping this retractor around was very narrow. A better approach would have been to think of the retractor as pushing the liver out of the way rather than lifting it up. A better design would have been more like a tent frame that supported the liver while staying out of the way of the surgeon operating on the stomach.
Liver Retractor Control
The first complaint that I got from the surgeon when I let him test the prototype retractor shown in the previous post was that the interface didn't make any sense. He moved the joysticks while watching the retractor, expecting it to imitate the motions of his fingers, while I had designed it so that the joysticks themselves were representations of the retractor fingers and the movements of the retractor would mimic the position of the joysticks.The interface just wasn't set up for the kind of control that the surgeon wanted. He was correct though, the surgeon wouldn't be looking at the joysticks when he was working, he would be watching the retractor inside the patient. The interface would have to translate his hand motions into motions of the retractor. So I set out to make a new interface that would hide the joysticks and just focus on getting the surgeon's hand into a natural position.
This diagram shows a part of the new interface, the joysticks that control the finger portion of the retractor. It is shown upside down in an attempt to make the joysticks recognizable for what they are. The surgeons hand would wrap around the top (bottom in this diagram) of the shell containing the joysticks and his fingers would rest in a series of loops protruding from the shell. Each loop stem would pivot around a pin in a slot, allowing side to side and forward and backward motion. These motions would be transferred to tiny joysticks inside the shell which were wired to the motors that controlled the retractor. I tried to get at least the basic idea of this across in this section view which was drawn based on a CAD model I used to fabricate the shell.
However, I didn't show this diagram to the surgeon as that would have defeated the entire purpose of my redesign: to hide the joysticks so that he didn't have to think about them. When I let him control the retractor, it was much more intuitive for him. He did complain that the range of motion for each finger was too limited, but at least it was a step in the right direction!
Liver Retractor
The project was a retractor to support the liver during minimally invasive robotic surgeries. The goal of the diagram was first to convey the concept and basic function of the first retractor prototype to the surgeon sponsoring the project and second to show enough action and complexity that he would feel that his money had been well spent and we weren't wasting his time.
I had it in my head that it should be an entirely visual poster with minimal text. Most engineering posters look like walls of text, with a few graphs and small pictures squeezed into the times new roman masonry. I think that people who look at a poster will pretend to read the words while actually just darting their eyes from one picture to another. If the pictures don't tell the story, they probably won't take the time to read the text.
So I decided to try to give a flow to the diagram, by wrapping a semi-exploded rendering of the device around some more explanatory pictures of the device in surgery to give some context to the poster. The focal point at the center would explain to the viewer what the research was about: "robotic surgery". More specifically: "visualization of the surgical field" the viewer should realize as he or she sees the surgeon's POV off to the right of his head. This is all encircled by the device itself, in an attempt to guide the viewer's eye around the poster.
The first part of the retractor to catch the viewer's eye would probably be the end effector, with its three bright blue fingers. The control of these fingers is explained as the eye moves counter clockwise to find the motor array in the box at the bottom left. The method by which these motors are controlled is explained as the eye continues to the bottom right to the joystick interface. Just to clear up any ambiguity, a top view of the joystick interface is overlaid on the retractor end effector to show the relationship.
I wanted the images in the poster to all have a uniform and simple but tidy look. To do this I drew on source images from photos of surgeons in the OR, CAD drawings that I had made of parts of the system and an endoscopic view taken during a surgery. I took all of these source images and redrew them using an open source paint program (paint.net). This program allows the use of layers which made it easy to move the components of my drawing around.
The poster ended up working very well and the surgeon was impressed. I also submitted this for my engineering department's poster contest and won first place. I think the benefit of a visual poster like this in a poster competition is that it allows the presenter to do all of the talking without the viewer being distracted by trying to read text on the poster while listening. The presenter can then point to aspects of the design as he or she discusses them to lead the viewer through the research. This makes the poster more of a handy collection of visuals to be used in presenting an idea.
One thing that I wish I had done better, was to show the proposed device in surgery. The prototype retractor is barely visible in the surgeon's POV image at center right just under the liver. The image is dark and the retractor is barely recognizable. This requires a little imagination on the part of the viewer to figure out how the retractor is helping the surgeon.
I had it in my head that it should be an entirely visual poster with minimal text. Most engineering posters look like walls of text, with a few graphs and small pictures squeezed into the times new roman masonry. I think that people who look at a poster will pretend to read the words while actually just darting their eyes from one picture to another. If the pictures don't tell the story, they probably won't take the time to read the text.
So I decided to try to give a flow to the diagram, by wrapping a semi-exploded rendering of the device around some more explanatory pictures of the device in surgery to give some context to the poster. The focal point at the center would explain to the viewer what the research was about: "robotic surgery". More specifically: "visualization of the surgical field" the viewer should realize as he or she sees the surgeon's POV off to the right of his head. This is all encircled by the device itself, in an attempt to guide the viewer's eye around the poster.
The first part of the retractor to catch the viewer's eye would probably be the end effector, with its three bright blue fingers. The control of these fingers is explained as the eye moves counter clockwise to find the motor array in the box at the bottom left. The method by which these motors are controlled is explained as the eye continues to the bottom right to the joystick interface. Just to clear up any ambiguity, a top view of the joystick interface is overlaid on the retractor end effector to show the relationship.
I wanted the images in the poster to all have a uniform and simple but tidy look. To do this I drew on source images from photos of surgeons in the OR, CAD drawings that I had made of parts of the system and an endoscopic view taken during a surgery. I took all of these source images and redrew them using an open source paint program (paint.net). This program allows the use of layers which made it easy to move the components of my drawing around.
The poster ended up working very well and the surgeon was impressed. I also submitted this for my engineering department's poster contest and won first place. I think the benefit of a visual poster like this in a poster competition is that it allows the presenter to do all of the talking without the viewer being distracted by trying to read text on the poster while listening. The presenter can then point to aspects of the design as he or she discusses them to lead the viewer through the research. This makes the poster more of a handy collection of visuals to be used in presenting an idea.
One thing that I wish I had done better, was to show the proposed device in surgery. The prototype retractor is barely visible in the surgeon's POV image at center right just under the liver. The image is dark and the retractor is barely recognizable. This requires a little imagination on the part of the viewer to figure out how the retractor is helping the surgeon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)