Invited talk by Nassir Navab

Augmented and Virtual Reality visualization techniques are finally finding their ways into many operative suites. As novel intra-operative, multi-modality imaging techniques provide the surgical crew with rich co-registered in-situ information, their integration, validation and deployment become active subjects of research for the CAI community. In this talk I will first present some of our latest results as exemplary cases. I will then try to talk about the challenges the CAI community faces before such techniques get adopted by providers and turn into commodity in routine procedures.

In particular, I will trace the Freehand SPECT and Camera Augmented Mobile C-arm (CAMC) from the early development of research ideas within our multi-disciplinary research laboratories to their deployment in different surgical suites. I first focus on the theoretical concepts of navigated nuclear probe imaging within operating room. The multi-disciplinary nature of this research guides us through different aspects of medical physics, computer assisted surgery and advanced imaging and visualization. I will then show how the ‘real world laboratory’ at our university hospital demonstrates its efficiency through the smooth path it paves for bringing the CAMC into the surgical theatre. I will finally try to discuss some of the interesting and exciting challenges that the CAI community needs to face in the upcoming years.

Nassir Navab is a full professor and director of the institute for Computer Aided Medical Procedures (CAMP: http://campar.in.tum.de) at Technical University of Munich (TUM) with a secondary faculty appointment at its Medical School. He is also acting as Chief Scientific Officer for SurgicEye GmbH (http://www.surgiceye.com). In November 2006, he was elected as a member of board of directors of MICCAI society severing until February 2011. He has served on the Steering Committee of the IEEE Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality between 2001 and 2008. He is the author of hundreds of peer reviewed scientific papers and over 60 US and international patents. He is the associated editor of several scientific journals including IEEE TMI and Medical Image Analysis. He is the general chair for IPCAI 2011, program chair for MICCAI 201 and general chair for MICCAI 2015. He has received Siemens Inventor of the Year award in 2001 for the body of his work in interventional imaging and SMIT technology award in 2010 for his inventive contributions to Camera Augmented Mobile C-arm and Freehand SPECT technologies; he is proud of his students who have received many prestigious awards in conferences including IEEE FG 2011, MICCAI 2007, 2009 and 2010, VOEC-ICCV 2009, AMDO 2009, BMVC 2009, IPMI 2007 and IEEE ISMAR 2005.