Application of imaging to the laproscopic surgery

One of the main components which facilitated the success of Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), e.g. laparoscopic surgery, is the utilization of a scope which can be fed through small incision hole. As a result, this offered the surgeon a two-dimensional view of the surgical site. In general, the (laparo)scope is held by the assistance surgeon which may not offer an steady images of the viewing area. Another main difficulty in performing laparoscopic surgery is the lack of three-dimension perception of the surgical site. This perception includes the lack visual information about the relative position of the surgical tools and the lack of volumetric perception of the abdominal cavity. This paper presents some preliminary results on application of image processing and imaging technique to the field of laparoscopic surgery. In particular the paper presents (a) models for the lens distortion which can be used for diagnostics purposes; (b) a method for tracking surgical tools; (c) sensing system for determining the size of the abdominal volume.