Interactive image-guided surgery system with high-performance computing capabilities on low-cost workstations: a prototype.

We present a new frameless stereotatic system prototype that has been initially validated in functional neurosurgery operations and that makes use of an optical position tracker for image-guided neurosurgery. Several devices for tracking different surgical instruments have been designed and manufactured. These devices include an array of infrared light-emitting diodes that are tracked by three charge-coupled device cameras. The system presents several new approaches for surgery planning. For high-quality 3D images of the patient's anatomy, we have developed a parallel version of a volume-rendering algorithm, thus enabling real-time 3D anatomy manipulation on low-cost PC workstations. In order to test the accuracy of the system, the localization of the target by means of a stereotatic frame has been compared with frameless techniques, obtaining a difference of about 1 +/- 1 mm.