Dynamic trocar-point for automatic laparoscopic camera control

Automated and intelligent construction machines are very important in for unmanned disaster response. One of the tasks involved in this is embankment construction. Usually, this conducted by teleoperation of a backhoe construction machine by one operator. Meanwhile, another operator controls an external camera which presents a visualization of the machine and the construction environment to the construction machine operator. In this paper, we propose a method for automatic control of the external camera based on the requirement specifications of the construction machine operator for unmanned embankment construction. This method consists of two parts: first, in order to present the desired visualization to the construction machine operator, the requirement specifications are extracted through video analysis at actual unmanned construction sites, and through interviews with construction machine operator. Next, an automatic external camera control method based on these requirement specifications is developed. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, it is necessary to compare the satisfaction/dissatisfaction of the videos from the backhoe operator's point of view. Therefore, we conducted a comparative experiment with camera control that satisfied and did not satisfy the requirement specifications. The superiority of the proposed method is shown by questionnaire evaluation using the proposed method.

Horizontally-moving method (HMM) stereoscopic camera has a liner relationship between ver-gence and focus control. We introduced the automatic control method for a stereoscopic camera system that uses the relationship between vergence and focus of an HMM stereoscopic camera. the Automatic control method uses disparity compensation of the acquired image pair from the stereoscopic camera. For faster extraction of disparity information, the proposed binocular dispar-ity estimation method by the one-dimensional cepstral filter algorithm would be investigated. The suggested system in this study substantially reduced the controlling time and error-ratio so as to make it possible to achieve natural and clear images.

As VR technology advances and network speeds rise, social VR platforms are gaining traction. These platforms enable multiple users to socialize and collaborate within a shared virtual environment using avatars. Virtual reality, with its ability to augment visual information, offers distinct advantages for collaboration over traditional methods. Prior research has shown that merely sharing another person’s viewpoint can significantly boost collaborative efficiency. This paper presents an innovative non-verbal communication technique designed to enhance the sharing of visual information. By employing virtual cameras, our method captures where participants are focusing and what they are interacting with, then displays these data above their avatars. The direction of the virtual camera is automatically controlled by considering the user’s gaze direction, the position of the object the user is interacting with, and the positions of other objects around that object. The automatic adjustment of these virtual cameras and the display of captured images are symmetrically conducted for all participants engaged in the virtual environment. This approach is especially beneficial in collaborative settings, where multiple users work together on a shared structure of multiple objects. We validated the effectiveness of our proposed technique through an experiment with 20 participants tasked with collaboratively building structures using block assembly.

The geometry between the horizontal and the vertical shifts of the lens to the CCD plane is introduced for the automatic vergence control of the parallel stereo camera. Under the condition that the disparity of stereo image remains constant, the horizontal shift of camera lens causing stereo disparity and the vertical shift causing focus have linear geometry. With this geometry, a simple auto-focusing algorithm is applied to the stereo camera lens for the vergence control of the parallel stereo camera.

This paper is dedicated to virtual world exploration techniques. Automatic camera control is important in many fields as computational geometry, visual servoing, robot motion, graph drawing, etc. The paper introduces a high-level camera controlling approach in virtual environments. The proposed method is related to real-time 3D scene exploration and is made of two steps. In the first step, a set of good viewpoints is chosen to give the user a maximum knowledge of the scene. The second step uses the viewpoints to compute a camera path between them. Finally, we define a notion of semantic distance between objects of the scene to improve the approach.

The authors compare the performance of a spatial domain and a spatial frequency domain control method used to assess image content information from charge coupled device (CCD) camera imagery. Sample underwater images were processed using the developed techniques and are used to illustrate comparative levels of control for different water qualities, object contrasts, and ranges. The implementation algorithm required to use these techniques to control an autonomous underwater vehicle's camera light level and range-to-target distance is also presented. >

Surgeons are now being assisted by robotic systems in a wide range of laparoscopic procedures. Some reports have suggested that robot-assisted camera control (RACC) may be superior to a human driver in terms of quality of view and directional precision, as well as long-term cost savings. Therefore, we setout to investigate the impact of RACC of surgeon motion efficiency. Twenty pigs were randomized to undergo a standardized laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication with either a human or RACC system, the AESOP 2000. All procedures were performed by the same surgical fellow. Time was recorded for dissection and suture phases. Inertial motion sensors were used to monitor both the surgeon's hands and the camera. Digitized data were analyzed to produce summary measures related to overall motion. The operative times were slightly longer with RACC (mean 80.2 +/- 20.6 vs 73.1 +/- 15.4 min, not significant). With regard to operative times and surgeon motion measures, the only statistically significant differences were for setup and breakdown times, which contributed <15% to the total time for the procedure. In terms of impact on surgeon motion efficiency and operative time under normal surgical conditions, RACC is essentially the same as an expert human driver. However, careful planning and structuring of the surgical suite may yield some small gains in operative time.

Camera systems are increasingly utilized in Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions on manned and unmanned aircraft. For manned missions, the automatic control of the camera field of view and orientation through pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) commands frees the pilot to perform higher cognitive functions. For unmanned missions, automatic PTZ commands enable higher degrees of autonomy. This paper addresses the problem of controlling the field of view and orientation of cameras mounted on air vehicles so that the resulting images of commanded areas of interest (AOIs) have specified ground sampling distances (GSDs). The problem is complicated by several factors: First, while the instantaneous positions of the vehicles are assumed to be known, their routes, including their altitude profiles, are not known in advance, which precludes preplanning. Second, the sizes of the AOIs are arbitrary, implying that a single look of the camera may not be sufficient to cover them. Third, the slew times of the cameras may be too slow, and the cameras may not operate while PTZ parameters are changing. Finally, given an AOI, the time intervals when the desired GSDs are achievable varies for different cameras. In the paper, we first show that successful collection of an AOI image (i.e. collection with a prescribed GSD) is only possible if the aircraft lies inside a spherical cap depending on the position of the AOI, and the desired GSD. Given a stream of requested AOIs, with corresponding GSDs and values characterizing their importance to a user, we then develop algorithms to service the most valuable ensemble of requests, while satisfying the requested GSDs. Three algorithms are developed: (1) a scheduling algorithm, for deciding which request to service at a given instant of time, (2) an admission control algorithm, enabling a graceful degradation in case of system overload (more requests than available timeline) and (3) an algorithm for deciding which of the platforms (air vehicle and camera) services a given request. We examine each of the three algorithms in turn. The scheduling algorithm is centered on the earliest deadline first (EDF) scheme from the real-time systems literature. Deadlines for servicing AOI requests are determined by computing the intersection between the extrapolated aircraft trajectory and the spherical caps defined earlier. The admission control algorithm is developed based on schedulability tests for EDF. Finally, the algorithm for routing the requests among platforms are based on machine shop scheduling problems, which essentially promote load balancing among the platforms. We introduce a heuristic called min-max utilization, inspired on the makespan minimization procedures developed for machine shop scheduling problems. Extensive simulation results are presented, illustrating the superior performance of the algorithms in contrast to other alternatives.