Medical School Working With Magnetic 3D On Glasses-Free 3D Screens For Possible Training, Surgical Applications
May 13, 2025 by Dave Haynes
I tend to think of glasses-free autostereoscopic displays as technology looking somewhat endlessly for a use-case, so it’s interesting to learn that Magnetic 3D has an “expanded agreement” with a medical school to explore using the tech for teaching and even in operating rooms.
The tie-up with Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) is based around the idea of enabling virtual and extended reality visuals without requiring viewers to put on headsets. Instead, these kinds of displays have a specialized lens that creates three-dimensional effects visible without special glasses or headsets, albeit with an often narrow viewing cone.
From PR:
The goal of the agreement is to deliver new immersive solutions for healthcare providers and educational institutions aided by artificial intelligence.
The agreement facilitates collaboration between Magnetic 3D and RWJMS to explore a number of exciting applications from new medical devices that could one day assist clinicians in the operating room, to interactive educational tools that bring immersive virtual reality (VR) content to medical students and patients alike, without the need for headsets.
“One of the biggest hurdles with VR and AR technologies is the commitment to wearing a headset or 3D glasses,” says Dr. Naveena Yanamala, PhD, associate professor of medicine, section chief of clinical research AI Innovation, and director of data science and machine learning research in the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases and Hypertension at RWJMS. “This becomes an obstacle, requiring setup time that clinicians may not have, and can be uncomfortable for students or patients. Glasses-free 3D technology solves these challenges allowing anyone to experience 3D content instantly – a real benefit for all stakeholders.”
One of the key focus areas is cardiology where 3D imaging plays an important role in visualization, education, surgical planning, and training.
“The ability to interact with life-like, three-dimensional cardiac images without the constraints of headsets or glasses is a game-changer,” says Dr. Partho Sengupta, Chief of Cardiology in the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases and Hypertension at RWJMS RWJUH. “This collaboration with Magnetic 3D represents a significant step toward more intuitive and immersive tools that will improve diagnostics, education, and ultimately, patient care.”
It LOOKS like this is a plan, versus something now in place …
As a result of this collaboration, RWJMS and Magnetic 3D will also work together to secure capital supporting these endeavors. Magnetic 3D previously installed its technology at the Center for Innovation, a joint program of RWJMS and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital an RWJ Barnabas Health facility, a teaching hospital where students have access to Magnetic 3D’s glasses-free 3D technology for medical research and innovation.
It has been ages since I had a good, long look at glasses-free 3D. The adoption barriers on this – at least based on past experience – would be visual quality (medical imaging tends to demand super resolutions) and that somewhat narrow viewing cone that has the visuals working best for the person immediately in front of the screen. Magnetic says its displays support 4K, which would maybe not be enough for diagnostics but probably fine for training.
Note – See comments … this one has a 120 degree viewing cone, which is much improved.
Glasses-free 3D was buzzy when it first came out, years and years ago, but has never really seen widespread adoption. As I have noted endlessly, products based somewhat around being eye candy and delivering Wow Factor tend to have short best before dates. In other words, people are excited when they first see it, but after that …
To Magnetic 3D’s credit, the company is still out there making and selling them.
Dave, you might be interested to know that Magnetic 3D’s glasses-free digital displays have a 120 degree viewing angle, no longer as narrow as 3D used to be.