Augmented Reality Helps Eye Doctors

Many augmented reality (AR) applications have been used in marketing and promotional campaigns to add a ‘cool’ factor. But AR indeed has many more far reaching and practical use cases. The medical and educational world can now utilize AR to quickly see and understand very detailed human body muscles. I can imagine many schools and hospitals using cost effective AR technology to teach doctors in training to make learning more interactive.

A company called ARworks has prepared a scientific AR application for Top Gear Promotions in the United Arab Emirates, to demonstrate the working of Rabinizumab, an eye medical procedure developed to cure certain kinds of eye dysfunctions on a virtual eyeball.

The app runs on iOS and Android and was specially made for eye professionals to see how the medical procedure of a syringe being inserted into eyeball heals the root of the problem.

The AR app uses marker based technology, the simplest form. The virtual procedure shows the eyeball in full then half disappears. Then you can see the blurry effects of the eye disorder. The syringe in injected and the fluid released and the healing starts, showing a healthy eye. The animation can be played continuously or step by step.

The interesting part is seeing how people with the disease see the world that is with blurry black blotches a very uncomfortable and frustrating problem I am sure. This is demonstrated as a virtual layer on top of the iPad. But after the syringe injects the medicine, the dark spotty layer on the iPad starts to become clearer and you can see how the procedure instantly helps sufferers.

You can watch a demonstration video below (with a vpn if in China).

http://www.youtube.com/v/hxJgkNIamAs&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3

The solution was made with Unity, and the Qualcomm AR plug in, within 2 weeks, for TGP (Top Gear Promotion), one of the biggest event and exhibition Management Company in the Emirates.