Virtual endoscopy is the navigation of a virtual camera through the 3D
reconstruction of a patient's anatomy enabling the exploration of the
internal structures to assist in surgical planning. Our group has been developping a virtual endoscopy tool integrated into the 3D Slicer.
With this tool, the surgeon can vizualize the 3D model of an anatomical structure and define a trajectory path both manually and automatically inside the model in order to perform a virtual exploration. When the virtual camera flies through the model, the surgeon can track the position of the virtual camera inside the model on one screen, view what the endoscopic camera sees on another screen and track the position of the camera on the original greyscale data (visualized as 2D slices). Virtual exploration through patient-specific data can help the surgeon perform a diagnosis without having to operate on the patient.
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This is a movie of a virtual fly-through of a patient's colon. The patient is being diagnosed for polyps. The 3D model of the colon is color coded by an algorithm developped by Steven Haker et al, from the Surgical Planning Laboratory at the Brigham & Women's Hospital. The suspicious areas appear in blue. Centerline points through the colon have been extracted automatically by Steven Haker and the Virtual Endoscopic tool creates a fly-through path for the camera.
Available in: avi format, QuickTime format (.mov), animated gif (low resolution)
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