Interactive bone drilling using a 2D pointing device to support Microendoscopic Discectomy planning.

PURPOSE

To support preoperative planning of bone drilling for Microendoscopic Discectomy, we present a set of interactive bone-drilling methods using a general 2D pointing device.

METHODS

Unlike the existing methods, our framework has the following features: (1) the user can directly cut away arbitrary 3D regions on the volumetrically rendered image, (2) in order to provide a simple interface to end-users, our algorithms make 3D drilling possible through only a general-purpose wheel mouse, (3) to reduce both over-drilling and unnatural drilling of an unintended region, we introduce a smart depth control to ensure the continuity of the cutting operation and (4) a GPU-based rendering scheme for high-quality shading of clipped boundaries.

RESULTS

We applied our techniques to some CT data of specific patients. Several experiments confirmed that the user was able to directly drill a 3D complex region on a volumetrically rendered lumber spine through simple mouse operation. Also, our rendering scheme clearly visualizes time-varying drilled surfaces at interactive rates. By comparing simulation results to actual postoperative CT images, we confirmed the user interactively simulates similar cutting to that carried out in real surgery.

CONCLUSION

We concluded our techniques perform mouse-based, direct drilling of complex 3D regions with high-quality rendering of drilled boundaries and contribute to preoperative planning of Microendoscopic Discectomy.