Medical and Industrial Augmented Reality Research at Siemens Corporate Research

This talk aims at presenting the research and development on Augmented Reality at Siemens Corporate Research. Due to lack of time I only present one application, Camera Augmented Mobile C-arm (CAMC), in detail. The rest of the presentation provides an overview of our other research activities. I also present a series of live demos.

Camera Augmented Mobile C-arm (CAMC) consists of an optical camera attached to a mobile X-ray C-arm. This was originally introduced for dynamic calibration of X-ray C-arm for 3D tomographic reconstruction(MICCAI'99). We compare the CAMC reconstruction results with the one obtained using an external tracking system (Polaris from Northern digital) for dynamic calibration(CVPR'00-1). We then add a double mirror system in order to create similar geometry for both X-ray and optical imaging systems. This results in the first real-time integration of X-ray and optical images. Finally, we run our Visual Servoing Based Precise Needle Placement(CVPR'00-2) under X-ray augmented video control. This introduces a new visualization tool and reduces the X-ray exposure to both patient and physician.

A series of demonstrations present other areas of research and development in our augmented reality group (WACV'98, IWAR'99, CVPR'00, ICME'00). In particular, we present a software called CyliCon for 3D reconstruction and AR applications in industrial environment.

Related Publications:

• MICCAI'99: N. Navab and M. Mitschke and O. Schuetz, "Camera augmented Mobile C-arm (CAMC) Application: 3D reconstruction using a low-cost mobile C-arm", Proceeding of the Second International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, Cambridge, England, September 1999.
• CVPR'00-1: M. Mitschke and N. Navab, "Recovering projection geometry: how a cheap camera can outperform an expensive stereo system", CVPR, Hilton Head Island, SC, USA, June 2000.
• CVPR'00-2: N. Navab and B. Bascle and M. H. Loser and B. Geiger and R. H. Taylor, "Visual servoing for Automatic and uncalibrated needle placement for percutaneous procedures", CVPR, Hilton Head Island, SC, USA, June 2000.
• CVPR'00-3: N. Navab, Y. Genc, and M. Appel. "Lines in one orthographic and two perspective views", CVPR, Hilton Head Island, SC, USA, June 2000.
• CVPR'00-4: B. Thirion, B. Bascle, V. Ramesh, and N. Navab, "Fusion of Color, Shading and Boundary Information For Factory Pipe Segmentation", CVPR, Hilton Head Island, SC, USA, June 2000.
• ICME'00: X. Zhang, N. Navab, S. Liou, 'E-Commerce Direct Marketing using Augmented Reality', IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo, Jul. 30 - Aug. 2, 2000, New York City.
• IWAR'99: N. Navab, B. Bascle, M. Appel, and E. Cubillo. "Scene augmentation via the fusion of industrial drawings and uncalibrated images with a view to marker-less calibration". In Proc. IEEE International Workshop on Augmented Reality, San Francisco, CA, USA, October 1999.