Toward a natural interface to virtual medical imaging environments

Immersive Virtual Reality environments are suitable to support activities related to medicine and medical practice. The immersive visualization of information-rich 3D objects, coming from patient scanned data, provides clinicians with a clear perception of depth and shapes. However, to benefit from immersive visualization in medical imaging, where inspection and manipulation of volumetric data are fundamental tasks, medical experts have to be able to act in the virtual environment by exploiting their real life abilities. In order to reach this goal, it is necessary to take into account user skills and needs so as to design and implement usable and accessible human-computer interaction interfaces. In this paper we present a natural interface for a semi-immersive virtual environment. Such interface is based on an off-the-shelf handheld wireless device and a speech recognition component, and provides clinicians with intuitive interaction modes for inspecting volumetric medical data.