Authors:
Martin Gröger
and
Gerd Hirzinger
Affiliation:
Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany
Keyword(s):
Optical flow, motion field, image stabilisation, motion compensation, tracking, beating heart surgery, minimally invasive surgery, image-guided surgery, medical robotics.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applications
;
Computer Vision, Visualization and Computer Graphics
;
Human-Computer Interaction
;
Methodologies and Methods
;
Motion and Tracking
;
Motion, Tracking and Stereo Vision
;
Pattern Recognition
;
Physiological Computing Systems
Abstract:
An optical flow method is developed to analyse the motion of the beating heart surface and the efficacy of strategies to stabilise this motion. Although reduced by mechanical stabilisers, residual tissue motion makes safe surgery still difficult and time consuming. Compensation for this movement is therefore highly desirable. Images of the heart surface, captured by a video endoscope, can be further stabilised based on motion information obtained by tracking natural landmarks in realtime. The remaining motion on the heart surface is assessed by a specially developed optical flow approach: It estimates the image velocities based on a robust region-based strategy and provides a reliable measure of the motion field of the heart. The analysis shows that tissue motion can be reduced by a global motion correction strategy while local motion differences remain.