Instructions for Setting up of DIY VR Laparoscopic Trainer

1. Required Hardware
   • P4 Workstation with WinXP or higher
   • Graphics Card with minimum 128Mb memory
   • Two Webcameras - identical
   • LED + Battery (for tracking) (Preferably Blue or White LEDs directly connected to Batteries)
   • Trocar (or similar tool)
2. Required Software
   • Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
   • OpenCV Computer Vision Library
   • Blob Detection library for OpenCV
   • Webcamera Drivers
3. Initial Setup - Hardware
   • Connect a webcamera to the computer via a USB port.
   • Open the camera utilities/settings and adjust settings to ensure a. Minimum Exposure b. Nominal Gain
   • Repeat the procedure with the other camera, but make sure that it is connected to a different USB port on a different internal bus. [This translates as connect one camera to a front USB port and the other to a rear USB port - at least for most computers]
   • Setup the webcameras on a platform within the operational area/dome such that they are relatively orthogonal and note the spacing between them. (also to be noted a the view angles and effective focal lenghts of the cameras)
   • Setup the trocar/tool such that its tip has the LED mounted on it. Ensure that the LED tip is in the view range of the cameras to begin with.
4. Procedure
   • Setup Visual Studio for use with OpenCV as given in : http://opencvlibrary.sourceforge.net/VisualC++
   • Add the Blob Detection Library as given
     1. open the project of the library and build it
     2. in the project where the library should be used, add:
        1. In "Project/Settings/C++/Preprocessor/Additional Include directories" add the directory where the blob library is stored
        2. In "Project/Settings/Link/Input/Additional library path" add the directory where the blob library is stored and in "Object/Library modules" add the cvblobslib.lib file
     3. Include the file "BlobResult.h" where you want to use blob variables.
     4. To see an example on using the blob library, see the file example.txt inside the zip file. NOTE: Verify that in the project where the cvblobslib.lib is used, the MFC Runtime Libraries are not mixed:
        1. Check in "Project->Settings->C/C++->Code Generation->Use run-time library" of your project and set it to Debug Multithreaded DLL (debug version ) or to Multithreaded DLL ( release version ).
        2. Check in "Project->Settings->General" how it uses the MFC. It should be "Use MFC in a shared DLL".
        3. NOTE: The library can be compiled and used in .NET using this steps, but the menu options may differ a little
        4. NOTE2: In the .NET version, the character sets must be equal in the .lib and in the project.
     5. Open the simulation program in Visual Studio and run without debugging
5. Results
   • The 3D coordinates are output to a text file for which a simulation can be run