Volume rendering for surgical planning in virtual reality

The number of high-complexity surgeries has been steadily increasing over the last decades. One reason for this is the demographic trend of an aging population observed in many countries, which results in an increasing number of patients requiring complex interventions. Another important factor is the development and continued improvement of advanced surgical techniques and devices, such as minimally invasive surgeries, which enable surgeons to treat more challenging cases successfully. While these techniques can improve the surgical outcome, they are also considerably more difficult and require careful planning and training.
Surgical planning of complex cases is typically done using volumetric medical images, such as computed tomography (CT) scans or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data sets. These modalities capture the imaging subject in three dimensions, allowing a more detailed analysis of the patient's anatomy compared to the planar projection created by an X-ray device. Despite the three-dimensional