Design of fiducials for accurate registration of CT and MR volume images
Matthew Y. Wang, J. Michael Fitzpatrick, Calvin R. Maurer · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1995
There is an increasing demand for accurate registration of CT and MR images for diagnosis and for surgical planning. One useful technique registers images using externally attached fiducial markers. Previous studies have shown that point-based registration accuracy depends on fiducial localization accuracy, that is, the accuracy with which the position of a marker centroid can be estimated. This paper investigates the dependence of localization accuracy on marker size. The investigation is based on computer simulations. Three shapes are evaluated-- a sphere, a cylinder, and a cube, each with similar dimensions. The results indicate that (1) the accuracy depends strongly on the ratio of marker size to voxel size and (2) the dependence is almost identical among the three shapes tested. The simulation results are shown to agree with results from clinical images.