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VOXEL-MAN > Research > Volume Cutting

Volume Cutting

The free exploration of volume data for applications like e.g. rehearsal of surgical interventions certainly needs a `look and feel' close to a real dissection. We are developing free-form volume-cutting operations in our VOXEL-MAN system with emphasis on these two topics:

• specification and representation of free form regions in 3D space, and
• realistic volume-visualization of cut surfaces and arbitrarily shaped regions

With these techniques we built a training systems for temporal bone surgery which can be used by studying ENT surgeons or medical students.

Virtual Scalpel

Parts of the soft tissue have been removed by the use of a "virtual scalpel". In the same way parts of the bone have been dissected and moved. The detailed views of the cut surfaces show how accurate the cut surfaces can me modeled and visualized with sub-voxel resolution.

Drilling

We have integrated the methods for volume cutting into a system for the simulation of middle ear surgery. With a drill like tool, which can freely be parameterized, one can remove successiveley parts of the mastoid. This way a real temporal bone surgery can be simulated and the user can train his knowledge about surgical anatomy. Furthermore, at each step the procedure can be assessed with the help of cutting planes.

Selected Publications

1. Bernhard Pflesser, Andreas Petersik, Ulf Tiede, Karl Heinz Höhne, Rudolf Leuwer: Volume cutting for virtual petrous bone surgery. Comput. Aided Surg. 7, 2 (2002), 74-83.
2. Rudolf Leuwer, Bernhard Pflesser, Markus Urban: Die stereoskopische Simulation ohrchirurgischer Eingriffe an einem neuartigen 3D-Computermodell. Laryngo-Rhino-Otol. 80 (2001), 298-302.
3. Bernhard Pflesser, Ulf Tiede, Karl Heinz Höhne: Specification, modelling and visualization of arbitrarily shaped cut surfaces in the volume model. In William M. Wells et al. (eds.): Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, Proc. MICCAI '98. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1496, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1998, 853-860.