Abstract
Pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) and omnidirectional cameras serve as a video-mediated communication interface for telemedicine. Most cases use either PTZ or omnidirectional cameras exclusively; even when used together, images from the two are shown separately on 2D displays. Conventional foveated imaging techniques may offer a solution for exploiting the benefits of both cameras, i.e., the high resolution of the PTZ camera and the wide field-of-view of the omnidirectional camera, but displaying the unified image on a 2D display would reduce the benefit of “omni-” directionality. In this paper, we introduce a foveated imaging pipeline designed to support virtual reality head-mounted displays (HMDs). The pipeline consists of two parallel processes: one for estimating parameters for the integration of the two images and another for rendering images in real time. A control mechanism for placing the foveal region (i.e., high-resolution area) in the scene and zooming is also proposed. Our evaluations showed that the proposed pipeline achieved, on average, 17 frames per second when rendering the foveated view on an HMD, and showed angular resolution improvement on the foveal region compared with the omnidirectional camera view. However, the improvement was less significant when the zoom level was 8× and more. We discuss possible improvement points and future research directions.
Highlights
Telemedicine is broadly defined as information and communications technologies that provide and support health care between participants in the distance [1]
We presented a foveated imaging pipeline that integrates 360◦ panoramic image from an omnidirectional camera with high-resolution region of interest (ROI) images from a PTZ camera
The proposed pipeline consisted of two stages: modeling and rendering, and the parallel executions of the two stages allowed our system to achieve a high frame rate of the foveated view, which is required for the use of virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs)
Summary
Telemedicine is broadly defined as information and communications technologies that provide and support health care between participants in the distance [1]. PTZ refers to the camera’s ability to move side-by-side (panning), up-and-down (tilting), and enlarge/shrink the captured scene (zooming). This ability allowed the remote physician to control the camera orientation to communicate with in situ medical practitioners with regards to the context, and zoom in when an up-close view is needed, e.g., inspecting wounds or reading medical instrument. Chapman et al [3] designed an ambulance-based telestroke platform with a PTZ camera and assessed its usability. In their evaluation, one physician commented on how difficult it was to maneuver the PTZ camera
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