Screening with Christie Mirage in Europe's first live 3D dental surgery

As a technological partner of this event organized by Carl Zeiss and COEM in Madrid, Two Christie Mirage HD14K-M projectors have been used, with 3D Experiences streaming.

The manufacturer Carl Zeiss and the Official College of Dentists and Stomatologists of Madrid (EAT) have organized in Madrid the first live 3D dental surgery performed in Europe, on the occasion of some training sessions that took place in a surgical area, within the institution's own facilities.

This surgery has been broadcast live via fiber optics to the COEM auditorium, where four hundred experts gathered, and in which a high-performance screen had been installed Harkness Hall, of profit 2,4 in which they projected two Mirage HD14K-M systems of Christie, equipped with zoom lenses.

The transmission and visualization of the surgeries has been the responsibility of 3D Experiences, specialized in broadcasting and production of stereoscopic 3D content. Enrique Criado, project supervisor, explains that he chose Christie as a technological partner “for technical quality and benefits, but above all for reliability. “A live medical event where there is an intervention in real time does not allow for errors or failures.”.

Image and 3D quality were the points on which the assembly engineering was based. For image transmission, a single multi-channel fiber optic cable was used to extract all the necessary signals., minimizing risks and unnecessary equipment in the vicinity of the surgical field.

“We have worked with Christie for more than two decades, not only in 3D Experiences, but throughout my career in other companies - Criado points out -. As supervisor and head of audiovisual engineering, We have always had guarantees of success with them that other brands have not offered us.. For us it mainly means two things: reliability and quality, and this coincides with the principles of our company.”

The Zeiss OPMI Pentero system was used for the surgery. 800, one of the most advanced 3D microscopes on the market, together with the Trenion 3D-HD module, a high-definition, stereoscopic video device that allows surgeons to efficiently share three-dimensional images.

The two Christie Mirage projectors worked simultaneously forming a passive 3D projection, with the use of warping techniques to square the 3D image pixel by pixel. The entire event was carried out in mode dual stream, offering a native resolution per eye of 1,920×1.080p without compression, that is to say, double the information received on the microscope's own 3D screen.

“In most stereoscopic events we work with compressed 3D signals, in format side-by-side-underlines Enrique Criado-. This process of compressing two signals into the space of one degrades the image to a 50% in quality, so when large screen sizes are required, the result is clearly much lower, in many cases very disappointing”.

In this case, 3D Experiences worked with uncompressed and dual-channel image, “That is to say, we took full advantage of the quality offered by our client's microscope. The image quality was superior to that of the surgeon's own 3D monitor., and close to the optical quality of the Zeiss 3D microscope. That's why, "Attendees were delighted to have been able to live a visual experience comparable to that of the surgeon himself during the intervention.", Criado adds

Additionally, This company used a SIP system (Stereo Image Processor) to review and correct any imperfections that may come from the 3D image, at the same time to equalize, grade and record both signals with broadcast quality and, simultaneously, power the two Christie Mirage projectors. All this in real time and in dual stream, without losing quality.

3D imaging in medicine is very demanding, since its disparity can reach 2x or 3x, compared to a conventional 3D cinema film. “For this reason -continues-, A perfect fit results in offering the most comfortable viewing experience, zero stress and zero visual fatigue. Christie technology not only offered us exceptional image quality, but the possibility of a perfect 3D adjustment (pixel perfect) with zero degree of disparity in any area of ​​the screen”.

In this project, as this professional emphasizes, “The Christie Mirage provided us with perfect stereoscopic calibration, as well as color and contrast uniformity, reproducing one hundred percent the image captured by the Zeiss microscope. I think there was no attendee who did not perceive and praise the image quality of the event.. Curiously, Even the surgeons themselves who were able to see the images recorded in 3D after their intervention were surprised by the visual experience so close to that experienced in the microscope's own optics.".