6-DOF free-hand navigation interface for volumetric 3-dimensional ultrasound imaging: Preliminary results

In this paper, we present the 6-degree-of-freedom (DOF) free-hand navigation interface for volumetric ultrasound (US) imaging in order to support users to obtain an arbitrary plane from 3-dimensional (3-D) data. The proposed free-hand navigating interface system consists of US imaging system, motion tracker, and workstation: the US imaging system collects the cross-sectional B-mode US images and the motion sensor attached to the US transducer continuously provides instantaneous position vector during the scanning at the same time and sent to the workstation. It allows workstation can store the volumetric US image data with the pixel positions of each pixel in volumetric US data, thereby it can reconstruct the arbitrary US plane according to the motion of user´s hand tracked by the multiple position sensors. Preliminary phantom experiment for system performance test present that the system well provides an arbitrary image plane to user in real-time (over 60 fps).