Stereo video analysis for instrument tracking in image-guided surgery

Visual information obtained from endoscopy in laparoscopic surgery plays an important role in surgery navigation and provides a mean for efficient and effective image-based instrument tracking. Instrument tracking based on monocular vision is a well-researched field, in recent years, stereo vision based techniques have attracted the interests of the academic community. In this work, we propose two frameworks for instrument tracking based on stereo vision. We implemented these two frameworks and evaluated the tracking accuracy via comparison with an optical tracking system (OTS) employed regularly in surgery. Our results show the high potential of these methods for tracking instruments in laparoscopic surgical procedures.