PROCEEDINGS ARTICLE | May 28, 2001
Proc. SPIE. 4319, Medical Imaging 2001: Visualization, Display, and Image-Guided Procedures
KEYWORDS: Visual process modeling, Visualization, Image segmentation, 3D modeling, Biopsy, Volume rendering, Computed tomography, Spine, 3D visualizations, 3D image processing
A new surgical simulator is developed for spine needle biopsy, that provides realistic visual and force feedback to a trainee in the PC environment. This system is composed of four parts: a 3D human model, visual feedback tool, force feedback device, and an evaluation section. The 3D human model includes multi-slice XCT images, segmentation results, and force-feedback parameters. A block-based technique is adopted for efficient handling of large amounts of data and for easy control of rendering parameters such as opacity. For visual feedback, we implement a virtual CT console box and a 3D visualization tool providing MIP, MPR, summed voxel projection, and realistic 3D color volume rendering view. The visualization tool is for interactive 3D path planning. A haptic device is used to provide force feedback to the biopsy needle during simulation. The interactive force is generated in a voxel-based manner. After each simulation, the evaluation section provides a performance analysis to the trainee. We implemented the system by attaching a 3DOF PHANToMTM device to a PC with 600MHz Pentium III Dual CPUs and 512Mbyte RAM.
