In an innovation that could prove beneficial for healthcare delivery and education, Panasonic has unveiled immersive 3D capability in its HD Visual Communications System (HDVC).

Panasonic bills its 3D HDVC as providing a scalable and reliable solution for capturing immersive content as well as providing an easy-to-use training tool for educators. Adding the advantage of enhanced depth of field to the HDVC allows medical procedures to be viewed and demonstrated with greater clarity and realism for diagnosis and teaching.  The myriad manufacturing applications include real time viewing of computer aided design (CAD) schematics to make details pop and offer an enhanced viewing perspective.

"Panasonic 3D HDVC offers greater real time collaboration and realism impossible to experience with traditional 2D videoconferencing," said Bill Taylor, president of Panasonic System Networks Company of America.  "As a worldwide leader in 3D technology, Panasonic is proud to bring the power of 3D to our advanced HDVC solution."

Delivering Full HD video and 360-degree full duplex audio, the HDVC system surpasses the collaboration capabilities of conventional videoconferencing systems, offering care providers and medical educators a genuinely viable alternative to travel. The Panasonic HDVC system is scalable, meaning it allows for Full HD images to be displayed on a wide range of HD monitors, from desktop LCDs all the way up to a 152-inch class HD Plasma display, or even projected with an HD projector.

The system also allows for multiple HD cameras to be utilized, so a second camera can zoom in and share detailed images such as close-up details during medical procedures.

Videoconferencing has clear benefits for the emerging telehealth market as well. A recent report from Frost & Sullivan highlighted the increasing ease and affordability of such technologies, and expects adoption to increase steadily.

"The practice of telemedicine has been undergoing significant evolution paralleled by technological advancements in the world of videoconferencing," found the report, titled Visual Collaboration Applications in Healthcare. "These changes open new opportunities for videoconferencing service providers as they continue to address a market that remains highly under-penetrated. Hence, healthcare practitioners are increasingly adopting interactive video or videoconferencing applications for providing enhanced access to healthcare as well as improving the quality of such services at lower prices across the globe."