Towards Making Panoramic Images in Virtual Arthroscopy

Minimally invasive arthroscopic surgery has become the gold standard for orthopedic surgery procedures on joints done by making small incisions on the skin through which special miniature pencil-like cameras and tools are inserted. Simulation of the arthroscopic procedures in virtual environments is based on the specifics of the arthroscopic camera which is normally not a common forward-looking but a short-focus side-looking camera. In this paper we write about two problems which arise when modeling views seen through the virtual arthroscopic camera controlled by a desktop hap tic device in a hybrid image-based virtual environment. These are automatic creation of panoramic images of the surgical field from the actual arthroscopic videos and removing fish-eye distortions from the individual video frames.