Reliable Navigation for Virtual Endoscopy
01 January 1999
Virtual endoscopy provides a computerized, non-invasive procedure for detecting anomalies inside human organs. Several preliminary studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of such a modality. Unfortunately, previous work can not guarantee that an existing anomaly be detected, and it does not provide an effective navigation method for examining complex organs with multiple branches. In this paper we propose a reliable navigation technique which ensures the interior surface to be fully examined by the physician performing the procedure. First, inside the hollow organ, we locate a small set of center observation points from which the entire surface can be visible. We then connect these points with a path that stays in the center of the organ. During the navigation, the physician's movement is restricted to this automatically computed path, while he can use an intuitive and zoomable camera to explore the surface detail. Our preliminary experiment on airway data presents encouraging results.