Patent ID: 6926673

Claim:
A method for tracking the position and orientation of an ultrasound beam emitted from an ultrasound probe, the ultrasound beam bearing a geometric relationship to a visible object, comprising the steps of: storing a model of the visible object in a memory of an optical tracking system; calculating the position and orientation of the visible object; and calculating the direction of propagation of the ultrasound beam by applying the geometric relationship to the deduced position and orientation of the visible object, wherein the step of calculating the position and orientation of the visible object itself comprises the steps of: estimating a position and orientation of the visible object; generating an estimated image of the visible object in the estimated position and orientation; comparing the estimate image with a video image of the visible object; and adjusting the estimated image by adjusting the estimated position and orientation, until the estimated image corresponds to the video image, thereby deducing the actual position and orientation of the visible object.