A system for superimposing a 3-dimensional stereoscopic motion echo image of the heart onto the chest

In medical ultrasonic measurements, 5-dimensional reconstruction of successive B-mode images is widely used for the macroscopic observation of organs or fetuses. To understand the 3-dimensional images, a stereo display viewed with special glasses (having liquid crystal shutters) and special observation techniques (cross viewing, parallel viewing) have been previously proposed. In this paper, we proposed a system for superimposing a 3-dimensional stereoscopic motion echo image of the heart onto the chest of the subject. A see-through head-mounted display was used for merging the virtual image (3-dimensional heart image) and the real scene (the subject). By the comparing this system with previous ones, the superiority of this system was confirmed in both the resolution of the 5-dimensional heart image and the ease of observation of the image. This system allows observation of the 5-dimensional heart image within the chest of the subject as if looking into the body. In the near future, this system is expected to be beneficial to clinics for purposes such as surgical planning.