A Surgical Navigation System Based on Augmented Reality

A useful clinical navigation system for spine minimally invasive surgery is presented in this research. Before surgery, a CT scan is used to realize the patient's spine lesions, and a model of the patient's spine is imported into the Unity-3D platform so that control scripts may be added. The surgical instruments that had been used were calibrated and registered, and the Polaris Vega optical tracker from the Canada NDI Company was used to follow the instruments in real time. The calibration balls used to calibrate the instruments were recognized by the Polaris Vega optical tracker. In order to display medical image data such as surgical instruments and patient lesions, the calibration and coordinate transformation of surgical instruments are realized in the coordinate system of the Polaris Vega optical positioning instrument, and the position and attitude information of the identified surgical instruments relative to Polaris Vega is sent to Hololens. It gives surgeons three-dimensional pictures of spinal lesions during surgery, assisting them in locating lesions and navigating surgical instruments.