Augmented reality for enhancement of endoscopic interventions

Computer assisted operation planning systems win more and more recognition in the field of surgery. These systems offer new possibilities to prepare an intervention with the goal to shorten the expansive time in the operation room required for the intervention. The safest and most effective surgical approach should be selected. But often, it is difficult to transfer the output of the planning system to the intra-operative situation and so to consider the planning results in the real intervention. At the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Darmstadt and the Centre for Advanced Media Technology (CAMTech) in Singapore, methods are developed to bridge the gap between the external planning session and the intra-operative case: augmented reality (AR) techniques are used to overlap preoperative scanned image data as well as results of the planning session to the operation field.