A man who spent 35 years in the dark has seen the light.
A factory worker not wearing eye protection was splashed with lye and immediately lost his sight, but with the help of TrueVision Systems’ three-dimensional technology, a surgeon replaced the clouded lens and restored the man’s vision.
“When some people begin to lose their vision, they lose their life,” said Robert Reali, TrueVision’s vice president of operations and marketing. “I’ve seen people cry with joy coming out of the operating room because (the surgery) is immediately effective.”
The Santa Barbara-based startup makes 3D imaging systems that help surgeons who use microscopes.
TrueVision’s digital device connects to a microscope that streams high-definition, 3D video to a projector. The company’s invention uses two digital sensors that relay two video streams on a screen. The surgeon uses polarized glasses that direct the right and left eyes to the corresponding images, which are viewed without delay.
In order to process each motion in real time, the TrueVision processing unit takes in gigabytes of data per second and outputs a 320-megabyte-per-second video.
A patient’s eye appears to rise out of its socket to meet the scalpel. The sensors capture every microscopic stitch as a surgeon sews a new lens into a patient’s eye with a material that resembles that of a spider web.
“When performing eye surgery the features are so small, (the surgeon) can’t feel anything and all their senses are dependent on being able to see in 3D, that’s why it’s so important,” said Thomas Riederer, TrueVision co-founder and director of quality assurance and regulatory affairs.
Three-dimensional entertainment has been used for decades, but two-dimensional displays ruled when TrueVision co-founder Michael Weissman created the prototype in 2003.
“Dr. Michael Weissman believed surgery should be done in 3D because the body is a 3D phenomena, and there’s nothing more intricate than the human body,” TrueVision CEO Forest Fleming said.
Weissman and Riederer originally built 10 systems and used feedback from surgeons to improve the product from 2003 to 2006. During the past two years, TrueVision has expanded from 16 to 50 employees and moved its Santa Barbara operations to a 10,000-square-foot space at the Santa Barbara Business Park in Goleta. The company totaled $4 million in sales last year.
TrueVision has continued to lead the way in 3D technology by creating digital applications that tell surgeons where and how deep to cut. Typically, surgeons would gather preoperative data and use a marker to indicate where to cut.
Instead, the TrueVision digital application almost looks like a compass around the patient’s eye. There are tiny hash marks digitally displayed around the eye as well as a line down the diameter to show precisely where to cut and what angle to place the lens.
“We are changing the face of the medical world,” TrueVision senior marketing manager Latifa McQuiggan said.
The $75,000 to $100,000 systems are used throughout the world, including at top universities throughout the nation as well as countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, India and Italy.
But the future is in education, Reali said. Universities such as the University of California-San Francisco, Stanford, Northwestern, Cornell and the University of Michigan use them for instruction in neurosurgery, ophthalmology and other fields. A Texas Instruments study shows a 3D medium increases test scores by 35 percent.
“Three-dimension captures students’ attention, and more data goes to the brain,” said Reali, adding that TrueVision is talking with YouTube to use its 3D platform for educational purposes.
Dr. Ali Krisht, director of the Arkansas Neuroscience Institute at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, streams live video from the operating room across campus.
“This enables course participants and staff to view surgical procedures in high-quality 3D that matches exactly what I see through the microscope,” he said.
For now, TrueVision is focusing on the technology’s medical uses, but it foresees many purposes. For instance, when factory workers hunch over each chip they inspect, they could instead stand up straight as they watch real-time video on a screen.
“We think all kinds of advanced procedures will result that we don’t even know,” Riederer said.
In fact, it might just save a factory worker’s eyesight.
“We want to change the way the world sees surgery,” he said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Alex Kacik can be reached at akacik@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Become a fan of Noozhawk on Facebook.