Everything looks better in 3D: blockbuster movies with blue aliens, epic MMO videogames, and even expectant parents’ fetal ultrasounds. “The challenge that we’ve had with three-dimensional ultrasound thus far is while the image has been 3D, we’ve always viewed it in a two-dimensional world,” explains Barbara Del Prince, Global Segment Manager, Obstetrics and Gynecology at Siemens Healthcare in Mountain View, CA. “Our monitors are two-dimensional, so you look at this 3D image on a flat screen.”

Siemens and NVIDIA formed an unexpected union to advance the process. The Siemens fourSight Workplace software presents stereoscopic 3D sonograms with off-the-shelf NVIDIA 3D Vision glasses. Del Prince says, “So now, for the first time, physicians and patients can view their 3D images in a true 3D format. They can feel like they can actually reach out and touch…their baby in true 3D.”

A standard Siemens ACUSON S2000 ultrasound system in the examination room is used to make the sonogram. A networked Dell Precision T5500 workstation waits in another room to review the scan in 3D. The Dell PC uses an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 graphics card, a Samsung 2233RZ 22-inch LCD display, and NVIDIA 3D Vision active-shutter glasses. The display runs at 120Hz, and the glass's left- and right-eye shutters alternate at 60Hz, blocking one eye at a time to give the other its own perspective. With the system showing each eye its own angle, your brain combines the images into one that you see in 3D.

“This has been a really exciting technology, not only from the patient perspective where they get to really see what their baby looks like—they get to observe their baby’s motions and facial expressions—but also from a physician’s point of view,” Del Prince notes. “It provides a different [level of] insight into different pathology.”

If the examination reveals a physical abnormality, parents and physicians can better assess the situation with the active 3D glasses. The system records the 3D ultrasound data, so surgeons can rotate and otherwise adjust their perspective to examine the fetus. Everyone is better prepared to treat the newborn.

Siemens revealed fourSight Workplace late in 2009, and the company—one of the world’s largest suppliers of medical equipment—should be selling the package by the time you read this. “As we start to productize this more and get more clinical feedback, I think that we’re going to find people are going to gravitate to wanting to see the 3D images in that 3D environment,” Del Prince adds.

“Looking way in the future, ultimately…we would like to be able [to be at the] patient’s bed and be able to look at 3D images in true 3D as they’re occurring in real time.” As people get more comfortable with 3D glasses for entertainment, the technology will also move directly into the examination room soon enough.