MOBILE MULTIMEDIA TELEDIAGNOSTIC ENVIRONMENT

A mobile multimedia telediagnostic environment (MMTE) permits users to work remotely on common shared resources and applications and simultaneously communicate both visually and through audio. Such an environment becomes more flexible and useful if it can work in a wireless and wiredin (integrated) environment so that the services can be provided for mobile hosts . As already mentioned, mobility of users becomes very important for many applications in telemedicine, where doctors , specialists, and health-record officials can cooperate and discuss particular medical treatment. In this application we are concerned with a large data set such as radiological images, video images of signals, and text that are transferred to the host from a server. Typically, in this case the communications are asymmetric in the sense that the server transfers a large amount of information, while the mobile host sends only a small amount of information in the opposite direction. Here the users have interfaces of PDA or laptops interacting remotely. In this application we need cooperation among the participants through special communication tools for conversation (Roth, 2001) and e-pointing (MacKenzie & Jusoh, 2001). The conversation can be of conference type, where two or more participants are involved. The e-pointers aid each participant to point out a particular segment of an image or a video image of a signal so that each of the other participants can visualise the movements of the remote pointer. This would provide for greater clarity and effectiveness of discussion about the particular image. Also in telesurgery (e-surgery) where two or more operating rooms are connected by a network, live video signals may require to be transferred from endo-camera (camera for photographing internal organs) and operating room camera to other remote locations for consultancy. This would allow surgeons not only to see but also visualise surgical instrument movements with 3-D models in real time during the surgery.