Patent ID: 7570791

Claim:
A method for registering two-dimensional image data with three-dimensional image data of a body of interest, said method comprising: acquiring the three-dimensional image data having first patient orientation information; acquiring the two-dimensional image data having second patient orientation information; and generating a digitally reconstructed registered radiograph that substantially corresponds to the two-dimensional image data using the three-dimensional image data and the first and second patient orientation information, including: (a) wherein the first patient orientation information includes determining how the patient was positioned or oriented relative to an imaging device during acquiring the three-dimensional image data and wherein the second patient orientation includes determining how the patient was positioned or oriented relative to an imaging device during acquiring the two-dimensional image data; (b) determining an estimate of the patient's orientation with respect to a dynamic reference frame based at least in part on (a); (c) wherein the digitally reconstructed radiograph includes a view through the three-dimensional image data, along the direction of the two-dimensional image data based upon the determined first and second patient orientation; refining the registration of the two-dimensional image data with the three-dimensional image data using the first and second patient orientation information and the common point information; wherein the refined registration employs at least two similarity/cost measures selected from a group of at least a normalized mutual information algorithm, a mutual information algorithm, a gradient difference algorithm, a gradient algorithm, a line contour algorithm, a surface contour algorithm, a pattern intensity algorithm or a combination thereof.