Yukihito Furuhashi

Augmented reality system for surgical navigation using robust target vision

This paper presents a robust and accurate vision-based augmented reality system for surgical navigation. The key point of our system is a robust and real-time monocular vision algorithm to estimate the 3D pose of surgical tools, utilizing specially designed code markers and Kalman filter-based position updating. The vision system is not impaired by occlusion and rapid change of illumination. The augmented reality system superimposes the 3D object wireframe onto the live viewing image taken from the surgical microscope as well as displaying other useful navigation information, while allowing the surgeons to freely change its zoom and focus for viewing. The experimental results verified the robustness and usefulness of the system, and acquired the image registration error less than 2 mm.

AR Navigation System for Neurosurgery

This paper presents a navigation system for an endoscope which can be used for neurosurgery. In this system, a wire frame model of a target tumor and other significant anatomical landmarks are superimposed in real-time onto live video images taken from the endoscope. The wire frame model is generated from a CT/MRI slice images. Overlaid images are simultaneously displayed in the same monitor using the picture-in-picture function so that the surgeon can concentrate on the single monitor during the surgery. The system measures the position and orientation of the patient using specially designed non-contact sensing devices mounted on the endoscpe. Based on this real-time measurement, the system displays other useful information about the navigation as well as the rendered wire frame. The accuracy of registration between the wire frame model and the actual live view is less than 2mm. We applied this AR navigation clinically in surgical resection of pituitary tumors in six cases, and verified its performance and effectiveness.