Abstract
Purpose
As an inexpensive, noninvasive, and portable clinical imaging modality, ultrasound (US) has been widely employed in many interventional procedures for monitoring potential tissue deformation, surgical tool placement, and locating surgical targets. The application requires the spatial mapping between 2D US images and 3D coordinates of the patient. Although positions of the devices (i.e., ultrasound transducer) and the patient can be easily recorded by a motion tracking system, the spatial relationship between the US image and the tracker attached to the US transducer needs to be estimated through an US calibration procedure. Previously, various calibration techniques have been proposed, where a spatial transformation is computed to match the coordinates of corresponding features in a physical phantom and those seen in the US scans. However, most of these methods are difficult to use for novel users.
Methods
We proposed an ultrasound calibration method by constructing a phantom from simple Lego bricks and applying an automated multi-slice 2D–3D registration scheme without volumetric reconstruction. The method was validated for its calibration accuracy and reproducibility.
Results
Our method yields a calibration accuracy of \(1.23\pm 0.26\) mm and a calibration reproducibility of 1.29 mm.
Conclusion
We have proposed a robust, inexpensive, and easy-to-use ultrasound calibration method.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Machi J, Oishi AJ, Furumoto NL, Oishi RH (2004) Intraoperative ultrasound. Surg Clin N Am 84:1085–1111
Boctor E, deOliveira M, Choti M, Ghanem R, Taylor R, Hager G, Fichtinger G (2006) Ultrasound monitoring of tissue ablation via deformation model and shape priors. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv 9:405–412
Hammoud MA, Ligon BL, ElSouki R, Shi WM, Schomer DF, Sawaya R (1996) Use of intraoperative ultrasound for localizing tumors and determining the extent of resection: a comparative study with magnetic resonance imaging. J Neurosurg 84:737–741
Charboneau JW, Reading CC, Welch TJ (1990) Ct and sonographically guided needle-biopsy—current techniques and new innovations. Am J Roentgenol 154:1–10
Comeau RM, Sadikot AF, Fenster A, Peters TM (2000) Intraoperative ultrasound for guidance and tissue shift correction in image-guided neurosurgery. Med Phys 27:787–800
Keles GE, Lamborn KR, Berger MS (2003) Coregistration accuracy and detection of brain shift using intraoperative sononavigation during resection of hemispheric tumors. Neurosurgery 53:556–562
Mercier L, Lango T, Lindseth F, Collins DL (2005) A review of calibration techniques for freehand 3-D ultrasound systems. Ultrasound Med Biol 31:449–471
Detmer PR, Bashein G, Hodges T, Beach KW, Filer EP, Burns DH, Jr DE (1994) Strandness, 3D ultrasonic image feature localization based on magnetic scanhead tracking—in-vitro calibration and validation. Ultrasound Med Biol 20:923–936
Trobaugh JW, Trobaugh DJ, Richard WD (1994) Three-dimensional imaging with stereotactic ultrasonography. Comput Med Imaging Gr 18:315–323
Prager RW, Rohling RN, Gee AH, Berman L (1998) Rapid calibration for 3D freehand ultrasound. Ultrasound Med Biol 24:855–869
Najafi M, Afsham N, Abolmaesumi P, Rohling R (2015) A closed-form differential formulation for ultrasound spatial calibration: single wall phantom. Ultrasound Med Biol 41:1079–1094
Najafi M, Afsham N, Abolmaesumi P, Rohling R (2014) A closed-form differential formulation for ultrasound spatial calibration: multi-wedge phantom. Ultrasound Med Biol 40:2231–2243
Brown RA (1979) Stereotactic head frame for use with Ct body scanners. Investig Radiol 14:401–401
Comeau RM, Fenster A, Peters TM, (1998) Integrated MR and ultrasound imaging for improved image guidance in neurosurgery. In: Proceedings of SPIE, The International Society for Optical Engineering, pp 747–754
Lindseth F, Tangen GA, Lango T, Bang J (2003) Probe calibration for freehand 3D ultrasound. Ultrasound Med Biol 29:1607–1623
Pagoulatos N, Haynor DR, Kim Y (2001) A fast calibration method for 3D tracking of ultrasound images using a spatial localizer. Ultrasound Med Biol 27:1219–1229
Boctor E, Viswanathan A, Choti M, Taylor RH, Fichtinger G, Hager G (2004) A novel closed form solution for ultrasound calibration. In: 2nd IEEE international symposium on biomedical imaging: macro to nano, Vols 1 and 2. pp 527–530, 2004
Chen TK, Thurston AD, Ellis RE, Abolmaesumi P (2009) A real-time freehand ultrasound calibration system with automatic accuracy feedback and control. Ultrasound Med Biol 35:79–93
Hsu PW, Prager RW, Gee AH, Treece GM (2008) Real-time freehand 3D ultrasound calibration. Ultrasound Med Biol 34:239–251
Hsu PW, Treece GM, Prager RW, Houghton NE, Gee AH (2008) Comparison of freehand 3D ultrasound calibration techniques using a stylus. Ultrasound Med Biol 34:1610–1621
Melvaer EL, Morken K, Samset E (2012) A motion constrained cross-wire phantom for tracked 2D ultrasound calibration. Int J Comput Assist Radiol Surg 7:611–620
Barratt DC, Penney GP, Chan CS, Slomczykowski M, Carter TJ, Edwards PJ, Hawkes DJ (2006) Self-calibrating 3D-ultrasound-based bone registration for minimally invasive orthopedic surgery. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 25:312–323
Blackall JM, Rueckert D, Maurer CR, Penney GP, Hill DLG, Hawkes DJ (2000) An image registration approach to automated calibration for freehand 3D ultrasound. Med Image Comput Comput-Assist Interv—Miccai 1935:462–471
Mercier L, Del Maestro RF, Petrecca K, Kochanowska A, Drouin S, Yan CX, Janke AL, Chen SJ, Collins DL (2011) New prototype neuronavigation system based on preoperative imaging and intraoperative freehand ultrasound: system description and validation. Int J Comput Assist Radiol Surg 6:507–522
Poon TC, Rohling RN (2005) Comparison of calibration methods for spatial tracking of a 3D ultrasound probe. Ultrasound Med Biol 31:1095–1108
Caramanos Z, Fonov VS, Francis SJ, Narayanan S, Pike GB, Collins DL, Arnold DL (2010) Gradient distortions in MRI: characterizing and correcting for their effects on SIENA-generated measures of brain volume change. Neuroimage 49:1601–1611
Soehl M, Walsh R, Rankin A, Lasso A, Fichtinger G (2014) Tracked ultrasound calibration studies with a phantom made of LEGO bricks. Med Imaging, Image-Guided Proced, Robot Interv, Modeling 9036:2014
Yan CXB, Goulet B, Tampieri D, Collins DL (2012) Ultrasound-CT registration of vertebrae without reconstruction. Int J Comput Assist Radiol Surg 7:901–909
Cleary K, Anderson J, Brazaitis M, Devey G, DiGioia A, Freedman M, Gronemeyer D, Lathan C, Lemke H, Long D, Mun SK, Taylor R (2000) Final report of the technical requirements for image-guided spine procedures workshop, April 17–20, 1999, Ellicott City, MA, USA. Comput Aided Surg 5:180–215
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Yiming Xiao, Charles Xiao Bo Yan, Simon Drouin, Dante De Nigris, Anna Kochanowska, and D. Louis Collins declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Xiao, Y., Yan, C.X.B., Drouin, S. et al. User-friendly freehand ultrasound calibration using Lego bricks and automatic registration. Int J CARS 11, 1703–1711 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-016-1368-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-016-1368-5