Patent ID: 8150497

Claim:
A system to navigate a surgical plan relative to an anatomy, comprising: an instrument operable to assist in performing the surgical plan; a tracking device operable to be interconnected with the instrument; a tracking system operable to track the tracking device wherein a location of the instrument is operable to be determined at least in part based upon the tracked position of the tracking device; a planning processor operable to execute instructions configured to: process image data to segment a third ventricle in a brain in at least a sub-plurality of a plurality of slices of the image data, wherein the image data is obtained by an imaging system; align at least the sub-plurality of slices in the image data; after aligning at least the sub-plurality of the plurality of slices of the image data, determine a mid-sagittal plane based on the aligned sub-plurality of slices; after determining the mid-sagittal plane, determine at least one anatomical landmark, wherein the anatomical landmark includes at least one of an anterior commissure or a posterior commissure as a bright point in the image data at a boundary of the segmented third ventricle, where an intensity change at the edge of the segmented third ventricle that can be an edge where the at least one of the anterior commissure or the posterior commissure meet the third ventricle; after determining at least one anatomical landmark, determine an anatomical target, which is a functional target that is relatively indistinguishable from the surrounding structures, based upon the identified anatomical landmark; and after determining the anatomical target, determine a path through the anatomy based upon the image data of the anatomy to reach the determined anatomical target; and a display operable to display at least one of a planned path icon illustrating a planned path, an instrument icon illustrating the position of the instrument, an instrument path icon illustrating the entire path of the instrument at an instant in time, the image data of the anatomy, or combinations thereof.