EasyVis2: A Real Time Multi-view 3D Visualization System for Laparoscopic Surgery Training Enhanced by a Deep Neural Network YOLOv8-Pose

Abstract: EasyVis2 is a system designed to provide hands-free, real-time 3D visualization for laparoscopic surgery. It incorporates a surgical trocar equipped with an array of micro-cameras, which can be inserted into the body cavity to offer an enhanced field of view and a 3D perspective of the surgical procedure. A specialized deep neural network algorithm, YOLOv8-Pose, is utilized to estimate the position and orientation of surgical instruments in each individual camera view. These multi-view estimates enable the calculation of 3D poses of surgical tools, facilitating the rendering of a 3D surface model of the instruments, overlaid on the background scene, for real-time visualization. This study presents methods for adapting YOLOv8-Pose to the EasyVis2 system, including the development of a tailored training dataset. Experimental results demonstrate that, with an identical number of cameras, the new system improves 3D reconstruction accuracy and reduces computation time. Additionally, the adapted YOLOv8-Pose system shows high accuracy in 2D pose estimation.