軟性神経内視鏡手術ナビゲーションにおける仮想内視鏡視軸と実内視鏡視軸回転誤差の簡便な補正手法

抄録

This paper presents a method for compensating the rotation error between the virtual and real endscopic images in a flexible neuroendoscopic surgery navigation system. Recently, electromagnetic tracker sensor is used in the flexible neuroen-doscopic surgery navigation system to track the tip of the endoscope camera in order to generate the navigation information such as virtual endoscope images corresponding to the endoscope views. However, due to the operation of surgery tools, the sensor will be rotated frequently during the surgery. Therefore, the virtual images become greatly different from the real endoscopic views. In this paper, we propose a method to overcome this problem using epipolar geometry. The epipoles of real (virtual) endoscope image pairs which are captured (generated) at different positions are estimated, and the rotation error between real endoscope and virtual endoscope is estimated by comparing the epipoles on the real image and corresponding virtual image. We implemented the proposed method in a navigation system for flexible neuroendoscopic surgery and performed a phantom test. The result showed the proposed method was efficient for compensating the rotation error between the virtual and real endscopic images in a flexible neuroendoscopic surgery system.