Exploration of 3D Medical Image Data for Interventional Radiology using Myoelectric Gesture Control

Human-computer interaction with medical images in a sterile environment is a challenging task. It is often delegated to an assistant or performed directly by the physician with an interaction device wrapped in a sterile plastic sheath. This process is time-consuming and inefficient. To address this challenge, we introduce a gesture-based interface for a medical image viewer that is completely touchlessly controlled by the Myo Gesture Control Armband (Thalmic Labs). Based on a clinical requirement analysis, we propose a minimal gesture set to support basic interaction tasks with radiological images and 3D models. We conducted two user studies and a clinical test to evaluate the interaction device and our new gesture control interface. The evaluation results prove the applicability of our approach and provide an important foundation for future research in physician-machine interaction.