Patent ID: 7072707

Claim:
A method of collecting and processing physical space data for use while performing image-guided surgery, the method comprising: (a) surgically exposing tissue within a living patient; (b) collecting physical space data by (i) illuminating the surface of the exposed tissue within the living patient with laser light, (ii) receiving light reflected from the illuminated surface of the exposed tissue within the living patient, and (iii) performing an analysis on the reflected light, the physical space data providing three-dimensional (3-D) coordinates for each of a plurality of scanned surface points; (c) based on the physical space data collected in step (b), determining registrations used to indicate surgical position in both image space and physical space; (d) using the registrations determined in step (c) to map into image space, (i) image data describing the physical space of an ablative instrument used to perform the image-guided surgery, (ii) an ablation zone of the instrument, (iii) the tissue, and (iv) a particular portion of the tissue to be resected or ablated; (e) taking a video image after collecting the physical space data; and (f) texture mapping the video image onto each registration by a dynamic calibration function.