Online Detection of Straight Lines in 3-D Ultrasound Image Volumes for Image-Guided Needle Navigation

Abstract. 3D ultrasound imaging can be a valuable tool in navigated interventions. When used as continuous imaging device, it can not only show the anatomical site but has the potential to measure instrument positions, e.g. to validate the data of position localizer tools. Real time image analysis is a prerequisite for this concept. Needle-like instruments can be idealized by lines. An algorithm was implemented in C that determines four parameters of an equation of a line in 3D space from voxel positions. It mainly consists of a sequence of two 2-D Hough transforms, which determine the instrument’s orientation and location. The execution time of the algorithm’s C implementation was measured on a PC platform for varying numbers of instrument and error-prone voxels. For a moderate number of voxels, real time demands for the 4DoF position determination can be fulfilled.