Innovative Virtual and Mixed Reality Systems in Healthcare

Dear Colleagues,

According to Precedence Research, the mixed reality (MR) market size in healthcare will rise from USD 60.35 million in 2019 to USD 1.33 billion by 2027. According to Fortune Business Insights, the virtual reality (VR) market size in healthcare will rise from USD 1.56 billion in 2018 to USD 30.40 billion by 2026. VR and MR will become driving forces with high innovation potential in the healthcare domain. They can be used, e.g., in the training of medical professionals (e.g., helping medical students learn the human anatomy, in surgical training), the planning of operations, the detection of diseases, and the treatment of patients.

Nowadays, standard hardware is used—i.e., for VR applications a head-mounted display is used in combination with standard handheld controllers, or a tablet/smartphone is used for standard augmented reality applications with a rather low user experience. However, there are many new (prototypical) hardware devices such as, e.g., data gloves and treadmills, which can be integrated to achieve more efficient and natural experiences in VR or MR. Furthermore, head-worn displays (e.g., Microsoft HoloLens) are receiving more attention as the field moves towards hands-free mixed-reality interactions in science and professional use cases.

In this Special Issue, we aim to publish exciting VR and MR ideas and examples in the healthcare domain to demonstrate how to optimize current and rather inefficient workflows and display some future possibilities. We believe that there is so much potential for the use of these technologies in the healthcare domain. Let us show the world these possibilities!

Dr. Gerrit Meixner
Dr. Saša Ćuković
Dr. Radu Petruse
Guest Editors

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• augmented reality
• virtual reality
• mixed reality
• healthcare applications
• innovative interaction technologies
• data gloves
• treadmills.