A Closer Look at Dynamic Medical Visualization Techniques

In navigated surgery, physicians perform complex tasks assisted by virtual representations of anatomical structures and surgical tools. Integrating Augmented Reality (AR) in these scenarios enriches the information presented to the surgeon through a range of visualization techniques. Their selection is a crucial task as they represent the primary interface between the system and the surgeon. In this work, we present a novel approach to conveying augmented content using dynamic visualization techniques, allowing users to gather depth and shape information from both pictorial and kinetic cues. We conducted user studies comparing two novel dynamic methods -Object Flow and Wave Propagation- and three state-of-the-art static visualization techniques among medical experts. Our studies provide a detailed comparison of the visualization techniques' efficacy in conveying shape and depth information from medical data, as well as task load and usability reported by the participants and post hoc analyses. We found that kinetic cues can assist users in understanding complex anatomical structures in medical AR.