An integrated “plug & play” 3D Slicer module for image-guided navigation for training, simulation and guidance

Minimally invasive surgery leads to significantly reduced morbidity and faster recovery times for patients. These advantages come at the cost of limited visual information available to the surgeon. Owing to the lack of direct visual feedback, visualization environments that enable three dimensional viewing and manipulation of medical images have become key, indispensable technology for minimally invasive interventions. The 3D Slicer software package is an open-source, cross-platform compatible compilation of libraries that enables extensive medical image visualization, processing and analysis, but offers limited built-in functionality for enabling interaction with tracking systems for image-guided navigation applications. Here we present a modular addition to the 3D Slicer environment that allows a rapid and robust integration with several commercial tracking systems while providing real-time estimates of several routine registration metrics. Additionally, the module also includes a modified, robust iterative closest point registration algorithm that requires no rigid-body registration for initialization. We have demonstrated the functionality of the developed module via several sets of experiments conducted using an engineering phantom and commercial tracking systems. The developed module provides a fast, robust and accurate approach for integrating a wide variety of tracking systems into the 3D Slicer platform for the development of “ready-to-go” applications for image guidance and navigation with minimal user development.