Find needle tip position automatically by segmentation during needle insertion

[lassoan (Andras Lasso)]

NeedleFinder project repositories are available here:

NeedleFinder

A simple fully-automatic needle detection algorithm is also discussed here:

How to measure tip position error and angle error between two needles in CT image?

Manually specify a line markup that is aligned with needle takes less than one minute (one click near the tip in the 3D view, then click on the dropped point and adjust in slice views; then repeat this for another point along the needle shaft, as far as possible from the tip). You could automate the process quite easily, as the needle has very high voxel value, a unique shape, and it is not connected to any other object. For example a fully automatic process could be the following: do threshol…

If you need to find contrast-filled markers (not needle voids) then you may find the robust tubular marker detection algorithm in ProstateNav useful:

ProstateBRP/ProstateNav/blob/master/TransRectalProstateRobot/vtkTransRectalFiducialCalibrationAlgo.cxx