Digitally reconstructed wall radiographs

Abstract

Computer-Aided Surgery (CAS) technology enables the generation of 3D virtual environments of body parts slated for operation. This translates into better surgical treatments, reduced complications, improved patient safety and lower health-care costs. An essential technique required in Computer-Aided Surgery is registration. However, current registration techniques have their shortcomings. Intensity-based approaches are easily trapped at local minima, while geometry-based approaches require the extraction of features for registration. This thesis proposes a hybrid approach to the modeling of 3D data for registration that combines the strengths of the two approaches while mitigating their weaknesses. It uses a 3D wall model of a femur such that the wall surfaces capture surface shape, the solid wall captures intensity information, and the interior is hollow. This model, known as a DRWR, can be registered accurately to an x-ray image using intensity-based approach without the need for feature extraction.