Line filtering for surgical tool localization in 3D ultrasound images.

We present a method for automatic surgical tool localization in 3D ultrasound images based on line filtering, voxel classification and model fitting. This could possibly provide assistance for biopsy needle or micro-electrode insertion, or a robotic system performing this insertion. The line-filtering method is first used to enhance the contrast of the 3D ultrasound image, then a classifier is chosen to separate the tool voxels, in order to reduce the number of outliers. The last step is Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC) model fitting. Experimental results on several different polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) cryogel data sets demonstrate that the failure rate of the method proposed herein is improved by at least 86% compared to the model-fitting RANSAC algorithm with axis accuracy better than 1mm, at the expense of only a modest increase in computational effort. The results of this experiment show that this system could be useful for clinical applications.