Natural 3D Object Manipulation for Interactive Laparoscopic Augmented Reality Registration

Due to the growing focus on minimally invasive surgery, there is increasing interest in intraoperative software support. For example, augmented reality can be used to provide additional information. Accurate registration is required for effective support. In this work, we present a manual registration method that aims at mimicking natural manipulation of 3D objects using tracked surgical instruments. This method is compared to a point-based registration method in a simulated laparoscopic environment. Both registration methods serve as an initial alignment step prior to surface-based registration refinement. For the evaluation, we conducted a user study with 12 participants. The registration methods were compared in terms of registration accuracy, registration duration, and subjective usability feedback. No significant differences could be found with respect to the previously mentioned criteria between the manual and the point-based registration methods. Thus, the manual registration did not outperform the reference method. However, we found that our method offers qualitative advantages, which may make it more suitable for some application scenarios. Furthermore we identified possible approaches for improvement, which should be investigated in the future to strengthen possible advantages of our registration method.