Patent Document ID: 20030000535
Application ID: 09894732
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method of collecting and processing physical space data for use while performing image-guided surgery, the method comprising: (a) surgically exposing tissue of a living patient; (b) collecting physical space data by probing a plurality of physical surface points of the exposed tissue, the physical space data providing three-dimensional (3-D) coordinates for each of the physical surface points; (c) based on the physical space data collected in step (b), determining point-based registrations used to indicate surgical position in both image space and physical space; (d) using the registrations determined in step (c) to map into image space, image data describing the physical space of an ablative instrument used to perform the image-guided surgery, an ablation zone of the instrument, the tissue, and a particular portion of the tissue to be resected or ablated; and (e) updating the image data on a periodic basis.