Interfacing Proprietary Hardware with the Image-Guided Surgery Toolkit (IGSTK): a Case for the OpenIGTLink Protocol

摘要

One of the key technical challenges in developing an extensible image-guided navigation system is that of interfacing with external proprietary hardware. The technical challenges arise from the constraints placed on the navigation system's hardware and software. Extending a navigation system's functionality by interfacing with an external hardware device may require modifications to internal hardware components. In some cases, it would also require porting the complete code to a different operating system that is compatible with the manufacturer supplied application programming interface libraries and drivers. In this paper we describe our experience extending a multi-platform navigation system, implemented using the image-guided surgery toolkit IGSTK, to support real-time acquisition of 2-D ultrasound (US) images acquired with the Terason portable US system. We describe the required hardware and software modifications imposed by the proposed extension and how the OpenlGTLink network communication protocol enabled us to minimize the changes to the system's hardware and software. The resulting navigation system retains its platform independence with the added capability for real-time image acquisition independent of the image source.