Construction of extended 3D field of views of the internal bladder wall surface: a proof of concept
This addresses a domain-specific problem for medical imaging in urology, but it is incremental as it builds on existing cystoscope technology.
The paper tackled the problem of constructing extended 3D views of the internal bladder wall to aid in lesion diagnosis and patient follow-up, achieving a proof of concept that textured surfaces can be built using minimally modified cystoscopes with quantitative assessment on phantoms.
3D extended field of views (FOVs) of the internal bladder wall facilitate lesion diagnosis, patient follow-up and treatment traceability. In this paper, we propose a 3D image mosaicing algorithm guided by 2D cystoscopic video-image registration for obtaining textured FOV mosaics. In this feasibility study, the registration makes use of data from a 3D cystoscope prototype providing, in addition to each small FOV image, some 3D points located on the surface. This proof of concept shows that textured surfaces can be constructed with minimally modified cystoscopes. The potential of the method is demonstrated on numerical and real phantoms reproducing various surface shapes. Pig and human bladder textures are superimposed on phantoms with known shape and dimensions. These data allow for quantitative assessment of the 3D mosaicing algorithm based on the registration of images simulating bladder textures.