Augmented Reality for the Neuro-Comrade Project

Operation microscopes are used in a variety of medical interventions. They provide high quality imaging and enable the surgeon to perceive very small anatomical structures in the operation situs. Nevertheless, their ergonomic properties are far from optimal. The microscope needs to be located between the surgeon and the situs, which forces him to grasp around the microscope while operating.

In contrast to that, the Neuro-Comrade system is located flexibly near the operation area, instead of occluding it. To achieve this, a combination of a high-quality endoscopic camera and an intelligent restraint system, substitutes the conventional operation microscope (see Figure 1).

Our goal is to integrate high-precision augmented reality into the Neuro-Comrade system. The overlay of preoperative medical image data to the operation area enhances orientation and the identification of risk structures during surgery.

The main criteria for the system design are the following:
As the application area of the system is in microsurgical interventions, the accuracy of the overlay is crucial. Therefore the calibration of the endoscopic camera and the registration of the preoperative data with the intraoperative scene need to be sufficiently accurate.
The second criterion is to design a compact system. Therefore a conventional tracking device instead of a navigation system is used and adaptable open source toolkits are used to implement device communication.