Framework for Fusion of Data- and Model-Based Approaches for Ultrasound Simulation

Abstract

Navigation, acquisition and interpretation of ultrasound (US) images relies on the skills and expertise of the performing physician. Virtual-reality based simulations offer a safe, flexible and standardized environment to train these skills. Simulations can be data-based by displaying a-priori acquired US volumes, or ray-tracing based by simulating the complex US interactions of a geometric model. Here we combine these two approaches as it is relatively easy to gather US images of normal background anatomy and attractive to cover the range of rare findings or particular clinical tasks with known ground truth geometric models. For seamless adaption and change of US content we further require stitching, texture synthesis and tissue deformation simulations. We test the proposed hybrid simulation method by replacing embryos within gestational sacs by ray-traced embryos, and by simulating an ectoptic pregnancy.