Patent ID: 8311614

Claim:
A method of tracking a position of an imaging head of a catheter in three-dimensional space within a human body, the method comprising: receiving a first image captured by the catheter, wherein the first image is in a first image plane; receiving a second image captured by the catheter, wherein the second image is in a second image plane, wherein the first and second image planes are non-parallel to each other; for each of a plurality of first data locations situated along a first line in the first image and a plurality of corresponding second data locations situated along a corresponding second line in the second image, determining differences in an image property between the first data locations in the first image and the corresponding second data locations in the second image along a first direction along the first and second lines, wherein the corresponding second line is a projection of the first line onto the second image; determining first correlation loss data from the determined differences in the image property between the first image and the second image along the first direction; determining a first angle of separation, along the first direction, between the first image plane and the second image plane using the first correlation loss data; and outputting the first angle of separation.