CPC A61B 34/25 (2016.02) [A61B 17/24 (2013.01); A61B 34/20 (2016.02); G06T 15/08 (2013.01); A61B 2034/2055 (2016.02); A61B 2034/2072 (2016.02); A61B 2034/254 (2016.02); G06T 2210/41 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |
1. A method for mapping and displaying a three dimensional (3D) surgical pathway within displayed imaging of cranial structures derived from voxels of a cranial scan of a subject, the method comprising:
selecting an initial entry voxel Vxe,ye,ze and a surgical site target voxel Vxt,yt,zt as endpoints of the 3D surgical pathway;
mapping a series of voxels such that each voxel between the entry voxel Vxe,ye,ze and the target voxel Vxt,yt,zt is a neighbor voxel of both an immediately preceding voxel and an immediately succeeding voxel of the series to define the 3D surgical pathway;
for each voxel Vxi,y1,zi in the series having an immediately preceding voxel, selecting the immediately succeeding voxel of voxel Vxi,yi,zi from among a group of neighbor voxels of voxel Vxi,y1,zi which excludes neighbor voxels of the immediately preceding voxel of voxel Vxi,y1,zi including:
determining selection weights of each voxel of the group of neighbor voxels on a selected basis including relative distances with respect to the endpoint voxels Vxe,ye,ze and Vxt,yt,zt and relative distance from voxels within a predetermined distance that represent at least a threshold density; and
selecting the immediately succeeding voxel of voxel Vxi,yi,zi based on a comparison of the determined selection weights; and
selectively highlighting the voxels of the 3D surgical pathway in a displayed view of the cranial structure to provide a visualization of the 3D surgical pathway.
|