Dataset Overview

The iMED Challenge uses task-specific subsets of the broader iMED dataset, a synchronized multi-endoscope dataset for robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery. For the full iMED dataset, please visit the official website for more information: Full iMED dataset page (link placeholder).

Overview of the full iMED dataset, including the acquisition platform, camera trajectories, and derived annotations

The full iMED dataset contains 340 sequences, approximately 170K synchronized timepoints, and four views per timepoint collected across ex vivo, postmortem, and live surgical settings. It includes calibrated camera intrinsics, frame-wise ArUco-based pose estimates, inferred instrument masks, and structured metadata. The challenge benchmarks two task-specific subsets derived from this broader release.

Dataset Access

The dataset will be officially released through the UCL Research Data Repository (UCL RDR). Dataset access page: UCL Research Data Repository.

Task-specific subsets

Task Cases Reference data / protocol Main purpose
iMED PE 69 train / 21 test ArUco marker-based reference poses with markers inpainted in the released frames Relative pose estimation under moving-camera, deformable scenes
iMED NVS 20 sequences Train on Endoscope 2 stereo video (~200 frames); test on held-out Endoscope 1 views (~200 frames) Deformable novel view synthesis from a held-out endoscope viewpoint

Subtask definitions

Pose Estimation case definition

Estimate accurate per-frame relative camera poses between two endoscopes in deformable surgical environments. Reference trajectories are derived from an ArUco marker-based pipeline, with markers removed from the released frames.

Deformable NVS case definition

Train on Endoscope 2 stereo video (approximately 200 frames) and synthesize held-out Endoscope 1 views (approximately 200 frames). This train-on-one-endoscope, test-on-another protocol evaluates geometric understanding rather than simple photometric interpolation.