Ray-casting-based evaluation framework for needle insertion force feedback algorithms

Abstract

Segmentation of patient data often is a mandatory step for surgical simulations featuring haptic rendering. To alleviate the burden of manual segmentation we chose direct haptic volume rendering based on CT gray values and partially segmented patient data. In this study, the fields of application are lumbar puncture and spinal anesthesia. We focus on a new evaluation method driven by ray-casting to define paths from the skin to the spinal canal. In a comparison of our reference system AcusVR to a newer algorithm, force outputs are found to be similar in 99% of the tested paths.