An Ultrasound Image Fusion Method for Stereoscopic Laparoscopic Augmented Reality

Zhiyu Fang, Jianmin Li, Zeyang Xia, Jing Xiong

Abstract: Because of the limitation of visual field and lack of tactile sense in traditional laparoscopic surgery, this study designs and implements an ultrasound image fusion technology with depth information of ultrasound images, which fuses ultrasound images in stereoscopic laparoscopic video. Firstly, the position of the ultrasound probe in stereoscopic video is determined by image features such as morphological information and image contour information. Then, the scanning plane of the ultrasound probe is solved according to the coordinate information representing the position of the ultrasound probe. Finally, the ultrasound image scanned by the probe is superimposed on the plane to achieve the effect of augmented reality. The accuracy of the proposed algorithm in ultrasound image fusion is verified by the experiment without probe. In addition, to further verify the effectiveness of the ultrasound image fusion technology in this paper, the experiment of ultrasound image fusion is designed when the ultrasound probe is horizontal and inclined. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can automatically identify the position of the probe and accurately fuse the ultrasound image into stereoscopic video.