Image-based tracking of the suturing needle during laparoscopic interventions
Stefanie Speidel, A. Kroehnert, Sebastian Bodenstedt, Hannes Kenngott, Beat Peter Müller-Stich, Rüdiger Dillmann · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2015
One of the most complex and difficult tasks for surgeons during minimally invasive interventions is suturing. A prerequisite to assist the suturing process is the tracking of the needle. The endoscopic images provide a rich source of information which can be used for needle tracking. In this paper, we present an image-based method for markerless needle tracking. The method uses a color-based and geometry-based segmentation to detect the needle. Once an initial needle detection is obtained, a region of interest enclosing the extracted needle contour is passed on to a reduced segmentation. It is evaluated with in vivo images from da Vinci interventions.