Patent ID: 7174202

Claim:
A medical navigation apparatus for navigating an anatomical body during a medical procedure, the medical navigation apparatus comprising: a medical instrument operable to be navigated through the anatomical body during the medical procedure; at least one field sensor associated with the medical instrument and operable to be moved in association with the medical instrument; at least one magnetic field source operable to radiate at least one magnetic field into the anatomical body and operable to be detected by the at least one field sensor; a controller operable to receive from the at least one field sensor signals indicative of the at least one magnetic field and operable to continuously ascertain positions of the at least one field sensor based upon the at least one magnetic field detected by the at one least field sensor; and a display operable to continuously display representations of the position of the at least one field sensor associated with the medical instrument as it moves from a first position to a second position to form continuous representations, wherein the continuous representations include a representation of the first position, a representation of the second position, and representations of the positions between the first position and the second position wherein the continuous representations of the position of the at least one field sensor is operable to be rotated in any direction on the display to illustrate the continuous representations from a plurality of perspectives of the continuous representations.