Hk curvature descriptor-based surface registration method between 3D measurement data and CT data for patient-to-CT coordinate matching of image-guided surgery

In image guided surgery, a patient registration process is a critical process for the successful operation, which is required to use pre-operative images such as CT and MRI during operation. Though several patient registration methods have been studied, we concentrate on one method that utilizes 3D surface measurement data in this paper. First, a hand-held 3D surface measurement device measures the surface of the patient, and secondly this data is matched with CT or MRI data using optimization algorithms. However, generally used ICP algorithm is very slow without a proper initial location and also suffers from local minimum problem. Usually, this problem is solved by manually providing the proper initial location before performing ICP. But, it has a disadvantage that an experience user has to perform the method and also takes a long time. In this paper, we propose a method that can accurately find the proper initial location automatically. The proposed method finds the proper initial location for ICP by converting 3D data to 2D curvature images and performing image matching. Curvature features are robust to the rotation, translation, and even some deformation. Also, the proposed method is faster than traditional methods because it performs 2D image matching instead of 3D point cloud matching.