Touchless Intraoperative Image Access System Based on Vision-Based Hand Tracking

TL;DR

This paper introduces a low-cost, vision-based touchless system for intraoperative medical image interaction using hand gestures and a single RGB camera, without extra hardware or training.

Contribution

It presents a real-time, hardware-independent hand gesture system for surgical image navigation, integrated with PyVista, demonstrating stable and low-latency performance.

Findings

Real-time hand tracking with MediaPipe Hands achieved low latency.

System demonstrated stable control and fluid interaction during tests.

The approach is feasible for clinical intraoperative use.

Abstract

Touchless interaction with medical images is becoming increasingly important in the surgical field, where sterility and continuity of the operational workflow are essential requirements. This work presents a vision-based system for intraoperative navigation of medical images through hand gestures acquired using a single RGB camera. Unlike many existing solutions, the system does not require additional hardware or user-specific training. Hand tracking is performed in real time using MediaPipe Hands, which provides a 2.5D estimation of hand landmarks. Simple and intuitive gestures are then mapped into translation, rotation, and zoom commands, enabling continuous and natural interaction with the image viewer. The system architecture is independent from the visualization software and, for implementation simplicity, in this study it was integrated with PyVista. Performance was evaluated through frame-level logging and quantitative analysis of latency, stability, and interaction robustness metrics. Experimental results highlight real-time behavior, with reduced latencies and stable control, in line with the requirements of fluid interaction. The system demonstrates the feasibility of a low-cost touchless solution for intraoperative access to medical images, laying the groundwork for future clinical evaluations.