Realtime Organ Tracking for Endoscopic Augmented Reality Visualization Using Miniature Wireless Magnetic Tracker

Organ motion is one of the problems on augmented reality (AR) visualization for endoscopic surgical navigation system. However, the conventional optical and magnetic trackers are not suitable for tracking of internal organ motion. Recently, a wireless magnetic tracker, which is called the Calypso 4-D localization system has been developed. Since the sensor of the Calypso system is miniature and implantable, position of the internal organ can be measured directly. This paper describes AR system using the Calypso system and preliminary experiments to evaluate the AR system. We evaluated distortion error caused by the surgical instruments and misalignment error of superimposition. Results of the experiments shows potential feasibility and usefulness of AR visualization of moving organ using the Calypso system.