Patent ID: 8548563

Claim:
A method of registering image space and physical space in a computer aided surgical navigation system, comprising: forming a computer readable template of a fiducial; acquiring image data; comparing, by executing instructions with a processor, the template to a plurality of points in the image data, wherein the plurality of points includes a sub-plurality of fiducial points; determining the sub-plurality of fiducial points from the plurality of points based on comparing the template; identifying a plurality of fiducial markers in the physical space; matching a first subset of the determined sub-plurality of fiducial points with a first subset of the identified plurality of fiducial markers; calculating a transformation of the image space to the physical space based on matching the first subset of the determined sub-plurality of fiducial points with the first subset of the identified plurality of fiducial markers; registering the image space to the physical space; and forming a local 2D tangential resection of the acquired image data; wherein comparing the template to the plurality of points includes comparing at least a two dimensional template to the local 2D tangential resection data.