Augmented Reality: The Future of Medicine (Interesting Engineering)
Augmented Reality (AR), also known as spatial computing --a merging of digital and physical spaces,-- is one of the current technology trends that, together with Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR), is changing all industries, including healthcare and medical education.
Even though these technologies are enjoying a lot of attention today, they have been around for a long while.In 1965, Robert Mann introduced the first virtual system in medicine (The Thousand Faces of Virtual Reality). It was used to decide what the best procedure for an orthopedic disease would be. It was also used to facilitate a new training environment for orthopedic residents.
In the 1960s, the first simulators with 3D images appeared. Later on, in the late 1980s, the head-mounted display (HMD) (a wearable device) was introduced for VR visualizations in medicine.
A little over a decade later, the first pioneering applications in medical education started to appear in the form of some hands-on procedures. AR and VR share some technical aspects.
And, ev...
