3D landmark detection for augmented reality based otologic procedures
This work addresses a domain-specific challenge for surgeons performing otologic procedures by providing a tool to enhance surgical accuracy through augmented reality.
The paper tackles the problem of identifying landmark points in preoperative ear CT images for augmented reality in otologic surgery, presenting a convolutional neural network approach that enables visualization of the cochlear axis on surgical video.
Ear consists of the smallest bones in the human body and does not contain significant amount of distinct landmark points that may be used to register a preoperative CT-scan with the surgical video in an augmented reality framework. Learning based algorithms may be used to help the surgeons to identify landmark points. This paper presents a convolutional neural network approach to landmark detection in preoperative ear CT images and then discusses an augmented reality system that can be used to visualize the cochlear axis on an otologic surgical video.