A Novel Weighted Integral Energy Functional (WIEF) Algorithm: Augmented Reality (AR) for Visualising the Blood Vessels in Breast Implant Surgeries

Abstract

The use of Augmented Reality (AR) for visualising blood vessels in surgery is still at the experimental stage and has not been implemented due to limitations in terms of accuracy and processing time. The AR also hasn't applied in breast surgeries yet. As there is a need for a plastic surgeon to see the blood vessels before he cuts the breast and before putting the implant, this paper aims to improve the accuracy of augmented videos in visualising blood vessels during Breast Implant Surgery. The proposed system consists of a Weighted Integral Energy Functional (WIFE) algorithm to increase the accuracy of the augmented view in visualising the occluded blood vessels that covered by fat in the operating room. The results on breast area shows that the proposed algorithm improves video accuracy in terms of registration error to 0.32 mm and processing time to 23 sec compared to the state-of-the-art method. The proposed system focuses on increasing the accuracy in augmented view in visualising blood vessels during Breast Implant Surgery as it reduces the registration error. Thus, this study concentrates on looking at the feasibility of the use of Augmented Reality technology in Breast Augmentation surgeries.