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V S Srinivas – Binocular Vision

Vuddagiri Sai Srinivas received his MS Dual Degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE). His research work was supervised by Dr. Kavita Vemuri. Here’s a summary of his research work on VR-Phore: A Novel Virtual Reality System for diagnosis and therapeutics of Binocular Vision:

Binocular vision (BV) is the result of the fusion of the input from each eye to form a coherent image. BV is essential for an individual to have normal vision. Clinically BV anomalies (strabismus, amblyopia) are evaluated using different diagnostic tests and instruments. In recent studies, non-strabismus BV anomalies have also been reported and flagged to be included in conventional screening protocols. A traditional instrument is the Synoptophore which evaluates three grades of BV. This equipment is very efficient but has certain limitations a) ambient light in the testing room, b) bulky and hence difficult to transport to screening camps in remote areas, c) Cost of Synoptophore is another major disadvantage, making it out of reach of most eye care centers etc. The aim of this study is to address these limitations with existing technology and provide a suitable solution for the same. Virtual Reality(VR) is one such rapidly evolving technology which provides a suitable platform to implement the principle of Synoptophore easily. Therefore, we propose VR-Phore, a VR application solely based on principle of the haploscope as in the Synoptophore which uses a head-mounted display device (Oculus Rift is used for this study) for diagnostics and also as possible therapeutic use. The proposed system addresses the limitations of the Synoptophore. Limitations such as requirement of suitable light source in the room while using synoptophore, there is no such requirement for VR-Phore usage. VR-Phore is a simple VR application which can be easily set up at any places like screening camps in schools, clinics or in any remote areas etc. Operating Synoptophore requires a clinical professional with prior knowledge on the device whereas VR-Phore can be used by anyone and the stored data can be provided to doctors for diagnosis. VR-Phore also provide added advantages of a software platform to incorporate testing modules for a range of clinical conditions very easily and tele- diagnosis. A total of 41 participants are involved in this study for data collection. The data collected from this system was compared to Synoptophore. Measurements, high correlations and accuracy was observed validating the application of the proposed system in diagnostics. The added advantage is the portability of the software platform onto a smart phone attached to a low cost VR head-mounted device, effectively making this system cost-friendly and affordable to everyone.