Received: 16 July 2018 Revised: 15 February 2019 Accepted: 6 March 2019 DOI: 10.1002/ett.3608 RESEARCH ARTICLE A novel solution for an efficient tele-collaborating in surgical medical education: Three-dimensional tele-immersion systems S. Gahatraj 1 Abeer Alsadoon 1 P.W.C. Prasad 1 Sami Haddad 2,3 Ahmad Alrubaie 4 Linh Pham 1 Anand Deva 5 Jeremy Hsu 5 1 School of Computing and Mathematics, Charles Sturt University Study Centre, Sydney, Australia 2 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Services, Greater Western Sydney Area Health Services, Sydney, Australia 3 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Services, Central Coast Local Health District, Gosford, Australia 4 Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 5 Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Correspondence Abeer Alsadoon, School of Computing and Mathematics, Charles Sturt University Study Centre, Sydney, NSW 2127, Australia. Email: aalsadoon@studygroup.com Abstract Three-dimensional tele-immersion systems for tele-collaboration in surgical medical education (SME) have not been implemented due to issues of variable bandwidth availability and delay requirements for high real-time video qual- ity. The proposed solution in this paper aims to implement a three-dimensional tele-immersion system for tele-collaboration in SME with improved video quality, minimized end-to-end delay, and an adaptation ratio, to increase tele-collaboration experience. The proposed system is based on an algorithm that enhances compression, creates bandwidth adaptivity, and leads to low latency (ECBAaLL), to make efficient use of limited network bandwidth and reduce end-to-end delay, by introducing a raptor code and an enhanced algorithm based on segmentation. The results achieved in terms of video qual- ity, end-to-end delay, and adaptation ratio of the video streams reflect that the proposed new algorithm improves the quality per stream of the real-time videos by 8% and reduces the end-to-end delay of the video packets by 6%-7% and that, with the new algorithm, the adaptation ratio of the bandwidth-adapted videos is increased by 4%-5%. This work focuses on reducing transmission delays and implementing an improved compression algorithm with reduced end-to-end delay and high video adaptation. Hence, the outcome is the quality of video streams for available bandwidth budget with minimal end-to-end and processing time delays on a real-time tele-collaboration environment in SME. 1 INTRODUCTION Collaboration plays a vital role in learning in any field, particularly in surgical medical education (SME). Currently, med- ical students collaborate with an expert doctor face to face, which incurs high travel and accommodation cost as well as fees for the expert doctor. 1 Due to technological advances, it is now, technically, possible to achieve the same outcome by using a tele-immersion system, a platform that facilitates tele-collaboration for medical students who are located in dif- ferent geographical areas. The tele-immersive system facilitates the three-dimensional (3D) virtual presence of an expert in any physical location regardless of the geographical region. 2 This plays a significant role in education in general but more specifically in SME for collaboration between medical students and the expert lecturer in a novel area of medical research. 2 However, there are still limitations in terms of Trans Emerging Tel Tech. 2019;e3608. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ett © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1 of 17 https://doi.org/10.1002/ett.3608