Patent ID: 8493389

Claim:
A system for determining a feedback on a three-dimensional location of a pointer in a view of a three-dimensional region of reconstructed from image data, the system comprising: a display unit for computing a two-dimensional view of a three-dimensional region for displaying on a display; a pointer unit for computing a two-dimensional location of the pointer on the view of the three-dimensional region, based on a pointer location input; a location unit for computing a three-dimensional location on a surface in the three-dimensional region, based on a two-dimensional location on the view of the three-dimensional region; and a shadow unit for determining a set of two-dimensional locations for displaying a shadow on the view of the three-dimensional region, wherein the set of two-dimensional locations for displaying the shadow comprises the two-dimensional location of the pointer on the view of the three-dimensional region and points within a preselected spot around the pointer and wherein a set of three-dimensional locations, computed based on the set of two-dimensional locations for displaying the shadow, is connected, such that the shadow is displayed in locations of the two-dimensional view corresponding to the three-dimensional location of the pointer in the three-dimensional region of the image data and the two-dimensional locations corresponding to the three-dimensional locations which are both connected to the three-dimensional location of the pointer and within the preselected spot; and wherein the set of three-dimensional locations are defined by a set of voxels and wherein the shadow unit determines the connected three-dimensional locations by determining which voxels have at least one vertex in common.