# SpatialLabs stereoscopic display

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/spatiallabs-stereoscopic-display/34800>\
**Category:** Feature requests\
**Created:** [March 9, 2024, 4:44pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/spatiallabs-stereoscopic-display/34800 "2024-03-09T16:44:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 10

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2024, 5:41am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/spatiallabs-stereoscopic-display/34800/10 "2024-03-12T05:41:03Z")

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> [@Mark\_Ryan](#):
>
> What the 3D display does is minimize the amount of manipulation required to gain an understanding of the image

This is indeed useful. I would just add that there are many other ways to improve depth cues or make the images easier to interpret. For example, we recently added colored volume rendering and ambient shadows (see some example images [here](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/improve-ambient-occlusion-in-volume-rendering/33590/6) and [here](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/vtk-multivolume-cinematic-volume-rendering/31981)), which can be used in addition or instead of stereo volume rendering to greatly improve understanding of the 3D renderings.

> [@Mark\_Ryan](#):
>
> I think we might be using these for different things. For us, AR overlay during open surgery may not add much because the structures are small in general, and you can usually identify the limits of solid organ tumors on palpation

I agree, these are two quite distinct use cases. The HoloLens is already proven to be useful for large and superficial targets, for low-accuracy applications (e.g., give confidence to surgeons in determining skin incison location), but may not be ideal for microsurgeries.

> [@Mark\_Ryan](#):
>
> AR solutions that provide overlay data during laparoscopy or open with under 2.5-3.5x magnification would be ideal, but I don’t think those technologies exist yet.

Lots of solutions were developed for displaying image overlay in laparoscopes or microscopes in the past 20 years, but they have not become widely used clinically - probably because they did not work that well in practice. Seeing recent progress in imaging AI, it is quite likely that real-time AI image annotations will become available in products of all the large laparoscopy vendors within a few years.

To add AR to surgical loupes, maybe the easiest solution could be to use digital loupes (like [nuloupes](https://www.nueyes.com/nuloupes) or [mantis](https://www.mantishealth.com/)) and external tracking.

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