# How generate a set of interest points on a surface from some points.

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-generate-a-set-of-interest-points-on-a-surface-from-some-points/21161>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** dicom, vtk\
**Created:** [December 21, 2021, 5:13am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-generate-a-set-of-interest-points-on-a-surface-from-some-points/21161 "2021-12-21T05:13:56Z")\
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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [December 21, 2021, 5:30pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-generate-a-set-of-interest-points-on-a-surface-from-some-points/21161/2 "2021-12-21T17:30:06Z")

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To give some more context, this is a point pattern that the Stryker/Mako surgical navigation system generates to guide the surgeon in surface point collection (page 33 in this [online pdf](https://www.strykermeded.com/media/2223/mako-tka-surgical-guide.pdf)):

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/slicer/original/3X/3/c/3c4c0ddb518c6dbd62ba01b06704396fcc9c220e.png)

This is just a convenience feature to guide surgeons who are not familiar with capabilities and limitations of point based registration. It is not necessary for the registration.

You can of course implement a similar feature. For example you can designate areas of interest on a template that you approximately register to the patient anatomy and then do random uniform sampling in those areas.

Note that convenience features like this are often covered by patents, so before investing significant amount of time into developing this you may want to have a look at [Stryker’s patents](https://www.stryker.com/us/en/about/patents.html). There is a lot of prior art and many variations in how to do this registration, so patents rarely have any practical relevance, but it is still useful to be aware.

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