Patent ID: 8500451
Filing Date: 2013-08-06
Classification: A61B,G06T,G16H

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for simulating an image-guided procedure, comprising: an input unit to receive a three-dimensional (3D) medical image specific to an actual patient undergoing a specific medical procedure obtained by a medical imaging system depicting an anatomical region of the patient undergoing the specific medical procedure, wherein said input unit is configured to receive a 3D data array composed as a pre-fetched and pre-parsed image, wherein the medical image is obtained after administering an intravenous contrast enhancement (ICE) component to the patient in order to improve precision of an automatic 3D segmentation process related to a soft tissue; an anatomy-model generation unit for generating a 3D anatomical model of the anatomical region based on the received 3D medical image, wherein said anatomy-model generation unit comprises a 3D image segmentation unit, wherein said 3D image segmentation unit is configured to perform the automatic segmentation process on the 3D medical image specific to the patient for segmenting the received 3D images into anatomical structures, wherein the segmentation process is based on a segmentation procedure in which relevant voxels of the received 3D data array are isolated according to values of the voxels, wherein said segmentation procedure is adapted to segment a subset of scanned voxels from the 3D medical image wherein the values of the voxels in said subset is in a predefined range, wherein said automatic segmentation process comprises classification of data voxels according to respective anatomical parts of said anatomical region and registration of said anatomical region; and a simulating unit to simulate an image-guided procedure planned for said patient according to said 3D anatomical model, wherein said simulating unit comprises an intervention simulator device and a simulation module, wherein said intervention simulator device comprises a dummy interventional instrument, motion detectors, a movement calculation unit, an image displaying device and a force feedback mechanism, wherein said simulation module is configured to receive inputs from said motion detectors, analyze the inputs using said movement calculation unit to produce outcome, translate the outcome to visual and tactile outputs, and transfer the outputs to said image displaying device and said force feedback mechanism, and wherein said simulation module is further configured to receive the segmented 3D medical image from said anatomy-model generation unit, wherein the segmented 3D medical image is translated to a 3D model that simulates the anatomical region of the patient.