Multimodal volume-based tumor neurosurgery planning in the virtual workbench.

We present a multimodal volume-based pre-operative surgical planning system developed around the KRDL Virtual Workbench, a mirror-based Virtual Reality system for precise work with 3D data. The planning system is being developed in collaboration with the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), and is undergoing clinical evaluation at SGH and Tan Tock Seng Hospital where 16 cases have been planned. We give a systems perspective on the user interface, introduce the multimodal aspects of the volume rendering technique, and describe the stages involved in creating the final multimodal image for planning with a clinical case: registration, segmentation of tumors, bone removal, path planning and measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]