"Image to patient" equal-resolution surface registration supported by a surface scanner: analysis of algorithm efficiency for computer-aided surgery

Ewelina Świątek-Najwer; Marcin Majak; Michał Popek; Magdalena Żuk

doi:10.1007/s11548-022-02704-1

"Image to patient" equal-resolution surface registration supported by a surface scanner: analysis of algorithm efficiency for computer-aided surgery

Int J Comput Assist Radiol Surg. 2023 Feb;18(2):319-328. doi: 10.1007/s11548-022-02704-1. Epub 2022 Jul 13.

Authors

Ewelina Świątek-Najwer¹, Marcin Majak², Michał Popek², Magdalena Żuk²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanics, Materials and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wrocław, Poland. ewelina.swiatek-najwer@pwr.edu.pl.
² Department of Mechanics, Materials and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wrocław, Poland.

Abstract

Purpose: The "image to patient" registration procedure is crucial for the accuracy of surgical instrument tracking relative to the medical image while computer-aided surgery. The main aim of this work was to create an equal-resolution surface registration algorithm (ERSR) and analyze its efficiency.

Methods: The ERSR algorithm provides two datasets with equal, high resolution and approximately corresponding points. The registered sets are obtained by projection of a user-designed rectangle(s)-shaped uniform clouds of points on DICOM and surface scanner datasets. The tests of the algorithm were performed on a phantom with titanium microscrews. We analyzed the influence of DICOM resolution on the effect of the ERSR algorithm and compared the ERSR to standard paired-points landmark transform registration. The methods of analysis were Target Registration Error, distance maps, and their histogram evaluation.

Results: The mean TRE in case of ERSR equaled 0.8 ± 0.3 mm (resolution A), 0.8 ± 0.5 mm (resolution B), and 1.0 ± 0.7 mm (resolution C). The mean values were at least 0.4 mm lower than in the case of landmark transform registration. The distance maps between the model achieved from the scanner and the CT-based model were analyzed by histogram. The frequency of the first bin in a histogram of the distance map for ERSR was about 0.6 for all three resolutions of DICOM dataset and three times higher than in the case of landmark transform registration. The results were statistically analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test (alpha = 0.05).

Conclusion: The tests proved a statistically significant higher efficiency of equal resolution surface registration related to the landmark transform algorithm. It was proven that the lower resolution of the CT DICOM dataset did not degrade the efficiency of the ERSR algorithm. We observed a significantly lower response to decreased resolution than in the case of paired-points landmark transform registration.

Keywords: Aspect of resolution influence on registration; Computer-aided surgery; Image to patient registration; Surface registration.

MeSH terms

Algorithms*
Fiducial Markers
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods
Phantoms, Imaging
Surgery, Computer-Assisted* / methods

Grants and funding

STRATEGMED1/233624/4/NCBR/2014/Narodowe Centrum Badań i Rozwoju