HUMAN SENSE OF VISION - A GUIDE TO FUTURE ENDOSCOPIC IMAGING-SYSTEMS

Visual perception is the leading sensorial impression from the environ ment in most situations of daily life, It is almost the only sensorial impression from the operating field in image-guided surgery, In this regard the qualities of the imaging system have considerable impact on the course of the surgical intervention. The way to significant impro vements of technical imaging systems is shown up by the sense of visio n itself, Five aspects of the sense of vision can be identified as a m odel for endoscopic imaging tools: (1) Direction of the line of sight; (2) Maintenance of clear vision; (3) Spatial vision; (4) Differentiat ed visual field and panoramic view; (5) High resolution, The five aspe cts of the human visual sense introduced obviously represent only a pa rt of the qualities of the human eye. Without doubt our simple analysi s of the physiology cannot be understood as a technical plan to imitat e the human eye, But it should demonstrate how we can abstract functio nal principles and define developmental guidelines for future tools ac cording to these functional principles. In a series of developments te chnical solutions covering the above features have been set up and ope ratively tested, The experience gained thereof has been used to define the scenario of an integrative future endoscope system, currently rea lized within a collaborative project.