CHICAGO: Chubby cheeks. A cute button nose. Tiny fingers and toes. A newborn can turn the sanest adults into cooing, babbling fools. Expectant parents who cannot wait to feel their baby’s touch soon may be able to preview that sensation while the child is still in the womb, thanks to computer software developed by a New Mexico company that adds a touch-like component to 3-D ultrasound technology.

The e-Touch software, developed by Novint Technologies Inc, a private Albuquerque, New Mexico-based company, replicates the sensation of touch through a special stylus traced over the ultrasound image of the unborn child. The software also helps enhance the 3-D picture, said Novint founder Tom Anderson.

“You can actually see what the baby looks like much more clearly,” said Anderson, 27, whose wife is expecting their first child in July. He has already spent many hours touching his son’s image.“It feels a little bit squishy, similar to skin. You can feel along the surface and feel a little bit of pressure and contour,” said Anderson.

Touch technology may have important medical applications. For example, it can help in monitoring a fetus’ development. “If a baby has an anomaly, it might help the parents to know how it is shaped,” said Jan Easton Carrasco, president of New Mexico Sonographics.

Other uses for the equipment could include evaluating breast tumours or colon polyps, reducing surgical errors by essentially allowing a doctor to practice before performing an operation, or in the training of medical residents. Used with a CT scan or MRI image, the software lets a physician feel textures and surfaces of the patient’s body, similar to what occurs once an operation is already under way.

“As surgeons we depend a lot on what we feel,” said Heywood, a specialist in gastrointestinal oncology. “If you feel a tissue, you can tell if it’s a malignancy or a non-cancerous or benign problem such as inflammation.”

Anderson helped develop human-computer interfaces while working as an engineer at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He licensed the technology when he left to form Novint.

The company, with 10 employees and revenues of $600,000, is working on a variety of touch applications, including automotive ergonomics, computer gambling, and underground oil and gas exploration. Anderson said he expects to reach revenues of $1 million this year and hopes to take the company public in a few years.—Reuters