3D navigation for transsphenoidal surgical robotics system based on CT — Images and basic geometric approach

This paper presents the use of computed tomography image (CT) to generate a 3D workspace in the area of skull base. Our ultimate goal is to develop a surgical robotic system to aid in the endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery. The 3D workspace can benefit both aspects of robot design and intra operative navigation system. In our system, the 3D model of a skull base area is created by the 3DSlicer program and is exported as Stereo Lithography (STL) format which is composed of faces and vertices for the basic structure. For the intraoperative navigation system, the collision detection of tools and anatomical structures can be done by a geometrics approach.