The MITK-IGT Navigation Tool Manager

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Navigation Tools Overview
• Managing Navigation Tool Storage
• Adding / Editing Navigation Tools

Icon of the Navigation Tool Manager

Introduction

This view allows for creating and editing NavigationToolStorages. These storages contains naviagtion tools of a tracking device, can be saved permanently and used later for any other IGT application.

Navigation Tools Overview

A navigation tool of MITK-IGT represents a tracking tool (e.g. an emt sensor or an optically tracked tool) and it's corresponding data, like it's name and it's surface. A navigation tool is a generalized container for any trackable object in combination with it's additional information. Every navigation tool has different properties which are:

• Name
• Unique identifier
• Tool definition file
• Serial number
• Surface for visualization
• Type of tracking device
• Type of the tool
• Tool landmarks

Note that not all properties are needed for all types of tools. A tool definition file, for example, is only needed by optical tracking tools (e.g. a .rom file for Polaris or a toolfile for the MicronTracker). A tool associated with the aurora system is alwalys identified by it's serial number. You can also detect Aurora tools automatically with the TrackingToolbox view and edit the automatically detected tool storage later with this view.

Managing Navigation Tool Storage

In order to create edit a tool storage container, you can select one of the available tool storages listed in the upper part of the UI. The list shows all tool storages which are available throug the micro services concept of MITK. The list also shows the current tool storage of the IGT tracking toolbox view if it is active. In addition to the listed tool storages, you can load new storages from the hard disc which will then appear in the list and might be edited as all other storage by simply selecting it in the list. You may also save a selected tool storage to the hard disc or create a new one.

In the lower part of the UI you always see the list of tools of the tool storage which is currently selected in the upper part. Use the buttons "add", "edit" and "delete" to manage the contained navigation tools. If you click "edit" or "delete" the operation is applied on the currently selected tool, as shown in the screenshot below.

Screenshot of the main view of NavigationToolManagent

Adding / Editing Navigation Tools

If you add or edit a navigation tool, an input mask, as shown in the screenshot below, appears. The tool identifier is filled automatically, if you change it, remember that it is unique in the current storage. Also, choose a valid surface for every tool, this is nessesary for correct tool visualization. By default, a cone is displayed. The other information depends on the tracking system type, e.g. choose a tool file for the Polaris or the MicronTracker system and type in a serial number for the Aurora system. Two identical tools with the same serial number are also possible, they are assigned by the order in which they are attached to the device. As long as they also have the same surface as representation, this should not be a problem for most of the use cases.

The tool type is additional information which is not needed by the tracking device but might be needed by further IGT applications. The same applies to the tool landmarks which might be defined for a tool. There are two different types of landmarks which are designed as described here:

• Tool Calibration Landmarks: These landmarks may be used clearly define the tools pose only by using landmarks in the tool coordinate system. E.g., two landmarks for a 5DoF tool and three landmarks for a 6DoF tool. These landmarks may be used, e.g., for a point based registration of a tool from image space to tracking space.
• Tool Registration Landmarks: These landmarks are designed for representing defined landmarks on a tools surface. The number of these landmarks might exeed the number of tool calibration landmarks for reasons of redundancy and averaging. They are used for, e.g., manually registering the pose of a tool by visual markers in a CT scan. If you would use these landmarks to do a point based registration from image space to tracking space later, you might overweight the tool because of two many landmarks compared to other markers.

Screenshot of add/edit navigation tool screen

Return to the overview of the IGT Tracking Plugin views: The IGT Tracking Plugin