ABSTRACT
Intracorporeal US is commonly used during laparoscopic and robot-assisted procedures involving deep-seated, hidden surgical targets. With US video conventionally displayed separate from the laparoscopic video, surgeons are required to mentally fuse these two modalities to plan and execute critical surgical actions. This mental fusion of information may not be accurate, and as a result, surgical errors can occur. Visualizing US in the context of the laparoscopic video eliminates cognitively demanding processes, while perception-action coupling is better established, which can drastically reduce the risks of surgical error. This chapter explores the technical details of establishing the registration between the laparoscopic video and the intraoperative video and visualizing the registered content in an intuitive manner to achieve augmented US visualization. In addition, the chapter investigates the psychophysical aspects of the visualization problem and highlights the importance of human factor considerations in designing AR systems in laparoscopy.
