Preoperative and Intraoperative Spatial Reasoning Support with 3D Organ and Vascular Models: Derived from CT Data using VTK and IGSTK

Different imaging modalities (MRI/CT) are used to analyse/plan complex surgical procedures in order to minimize risks and complications. Although there are numerous computer tools for preoperative assistance (VR/AR simulators, 3D printed implants), intraoperative systems are less common, specifically for soft tissue related interventions. For this reason, this paper is focused on 3D reconstruction. The proposed reconstruction combines a surface approach for organs and a block approach for vascular networks. Layered closed surface(s) represent an organ and stacks of extruded individual contour blocks represent the vascular networks. The authors use IGSTK to show that their approach improves shape and transparency results when compared with other modelling methods and to communicate with trackers. With their method polygon contour correspondence/branching between slices is implicit/automatic, saving time; they show that traditional tiling problems become visually negligible. The authors' novel file format allows polygons segmented by other tools to be reconstructed in their contour annotation tool which uses VTK.