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DescriptionAdvanced biomedical collaboration (ABC) is a technical framework based on the Access Grid (AG - www.accessgrid.org) intended to be used to overcome the inefficiencies and dangers associated with the place-dynamic collaborative workplace that biomedicine has become. Leveraging AG technologies and advanced networks can provide relatively inexpensive, rapid, high quality command and control tools to enhance inter-organizational and intra-organizational teamwork and collaboration. Furthermore, expanding the use of AG technologies among different design points such as stereo or head-mounted displays with human factors considerations, PDAs, Laptop, integration with complex instrumentation, and wireless transmission/bandwidth variability will allow biomedical specialists to remain connected to colleagues and visual data seamlessly wherever they are.ABC Concept Diagram 
GoalsThe project will develop, demonstrate, and assess network aware and wireless systems for tele-collaboration between biomedical professionals focusing on acute care specialties: surgery, anesthesia, emergency medicine and radiology. Commercial off-the-shelf hardware and open source software will be used. For EMS applications, wireless video hardware will be developed. The project will converge immersive virtual reality and teleconferencing.In addition to building an infrastructure and integrating commodity technology for collaboration and a shared situational context, there will be specific assessments of the technology in biomedical applications. These involve group to group interactions in educational contexts involving patient safety and medical simulation, tele-immersion and stereo display for surgical education and robotic surgery, wireless communication for pre-hospital tele-patient management, and 3D rendering of 2D imaging data in surgical-radiological consultation. The ultimate goal is to advance biomedical research, education, and practice by developing real time interactive, remotely collaborative and remotely manipulated, stereo video and visualization technologies for sharing human experience in complex physical and virtually augmented environments. Project ResourcesThe images below demonstrate several views of our existing collaborative stereo applications for manipulating DICOM data designed for use over Internet2. By re-building these using Internet2 capabilities and the ABC framework, we will fully converge immersive virtual reality with teleconferencing. This will open new venues for interaction among surgeons and radiologists. In one scenario, the surgeon will see stereo radiological visualizations in interactive head-mounted displays driven by remote radiologists in the same institution. This will be analogous to Global Positioning System interactive road-maps in that it is a picture-in-picture within the surgeon's real world, but the visualizations will be driven by an expert rather than a tracking system. In addition, each participating expert will see real-time video teleconferencing of the others' environment.   
Project Collaborators
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