Development of a Virtual Reality Platform for Multiuser Training in Medical Diagnosis

In Mexico, the increase in mortality due to Cerebrovascular Accidents (CVA) led the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), in January 2022, to create the Comprehensive Care Protocol for Cardiovascular Diseases - Brain Code, aimed at training medical personnel for timely care and treatment of CVAs. In response, the Simulation Center for Clinical and Surgical Excellence (CESIECQ) adapted the protocol to the “EngageVR” platform, aiming to enhance the use of virtual reality by comparing its performance against conventional screen-based assessment of images from Computed Tomography (CT) scans. The results of this evaluation showed that 85.7% of the participants preferred the clarity of images using VR, thereby more easily identifying cerebral anatomy. This finding supported the interest in developing a specialized multiuser virtual reality platform for CT scans visualization. Therefore, this document describes the details of creating a virtual reality environment in Unity enabling multiple user connectivity, image loading, and rendering of anatomical volumes from DICOM, RAW, or NRRD stacks of CT scans for visualization and manipulation with multiple tools within the environment.